New school in Oldham wins praise from Children’s Commissioner
Dame Rachel de Souza toured Brian Clarke Academy where a focus on raising attendance rates has seen children running into school.
A new school in Oldham has toured a school in Oldham as part of a visit recognising the borough’s efforts to raise levels of attendance. Rising rates of persistent absence in the years since lockdown have been an across the country. Earlier this year we reported on responses to the government announcement of a new national framework to ensure children attend school.
Dame Rachel de Souza, Children’s Commissioner for England, with Year 9 pupils at Brian Clarke Church of England Academy, photo courtesy of Oldham Council
That’s why Oldham’s record here is of particular interest. Attendance rates in primary schools across the borough have risen from 93.5% in 2022-23 to 94.3% in 2023-24, while in secondary schools the rise over the same period has been from 90.5% to 91.7%.
What’s more, over the same period the rate of persistent absence has fallen from 19.2% to 16.7% in primary schools and from 25.6% to 23.5% in secondary schools.
This success was marked this week by a visit from Dame Rachel de Souza, Children’s Commissioner for England, tasked with promoting and protecting the rights of children as set out in the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. Dame Rachel, whose six-year tenure as commissioner began in March 2021, toured the trailblazing new Brian Clarke Church of England Academy, which opened in April, where she learned that the education provision is so good that children are ‘running’ to get to school. She spoke to Year 9 pupils about their favourite subjects and met staff from a range of departments.
Of her visit, Dame Rachel says: ‘It’s a brand-new school full of students bubbling with enthusiasm. These young people are running to school because their education is so good and I’m very pleased to be here. One of my Youth Ambassadors is from Oldham and told me I had to come. Oldham is trailblazing in helping kids get back to school after lockdown and the council is doing some amazing work, so I’ve come to talk to the councillors today to see how they’re making a difference to young people’s lives.’
Allison Ash, Headteacher at Brian Clarke Church of England Academy, adds: ‘We’re celebrating everything around attendance here at Brian Clarke. We feel that we’re doing a great job for the local community for our young people and it’s wonderful to be able to showcase that.’
After visiting the school, Dame Rachel attended a reception in the Oldham Council Mayor’s Parlour to mark the success of work conducted across the borough to improving rates of attendance since the Covid pandemic. This, she learned, was achieved through data analysis, communications and multi-agency partnership.
In fact, Cllr Arooj Shah, Leader of Oldham Council, has recently been appointed Lead Member for Children and Young People at the Local Government Association (LGA). She says: ‘I’m proud to say we’re the first local authority across Greater Manchester that introduced the twice-a-year penalties if you take your children out of school. We don’t do that because we want to be seen as being tough, it’s about getting parents to understand the importance of education and attendance in schools.’
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