Absenteeism increasing in Guernsey's secondary schools

Monday, 24 August 2026 00:05

By Euan Mahy

Campaign branded 'Attendance Matters' will try to persuade pupils and parents of the value of going to school.

It is a legal duty for parents to ensure their child goes to school and it is enshrined in the 1970 Education Law.

However, director of education, Nick Hynes, says there are more subtle ways of tackling non attendance:

"We know it can be really difficult when you’ve got a young person who isn’t keen to attend for a whole variety of reasons.

"What we want to do is to reach out and work in partnership with you, the parent, to help you to ensure that your child can attend school regularly."

Absenteeism figures for the past five years show school attendance drops with age.

In 2025, just under 95% of primary school children were going to school regularly, but that falls to 87% at secondary school.

Education say that a 90% attendance record means a child misses four weeks of school a year.

At 80% attendance, that is one day per week of school that is missed. Lateness also builds up and 15 minutes a day can equate to losing two weeks of lessons across an academic year.

Nick Hynes says Attendance Matters will try to get to the root of why a pupil is missing school:

"Some non-attendance builds up over time and it becomes a habit where they don’t attend and that might have started from a long-term illness and it becomes really difficult to then attend afterwards.

"Some of it is down to poor friendship groups or being unhappy school, while some of it is down to finding school really challenging and they're not sure who to turn to, to get support."

Mr Hynes says the campaign will be high visibility:

"The community will see banners outside schools which highlight the positives about being in school.

"We'll also be launching our gov,gg attendance website that they can log on to and look up different advice and different support if they don’t want to speak to their school."