Responding to a new report from the children's commissioner linking school absenteeism to lower exam grades, Paul Whiteman, general secretary of school leaders’ union NAHT, said:

“The link between exam grades and absence shows how important it is that children and young people attend school regularly. Everyone agrees that this is the case, but unfortunately not enough is being done to solve persistent absenteeism.

“NAHT agrees with the Children’s Commissioner that a multi-agency approach that tackles the root causes of frequent absence is needed. We need dedicated and specialist teams and resources to work directly with pupils who frequently miss school to get underneath the reasons and to solve them.

“The issues causing absence can be complex and beyond a school’s expertise or ability to solve. Mental health, for example, is something we know to be a significant barrier to school attendance. Timely support from specialist mental health professionals is required in these cases.

“Unfortunately, a decade of cuts to services has seen both mental health care and the teams that used to support schools with attendance decimated. Schools and parents are often left with nowhere to turn for help. Large parts of the country do not benefit from either the government’s attendance hubs, or its pilot mentoring programme for those pupils absent most often.

“This is not an issue schools can tackle alone. The government needs to redouble its efforts and commit the necessary resources to tackle the issue of severe absence.”