Truancy figures for Crawley schools revealed

TWO Crawley schools have among the worst truancy rates in the county, new figures show.

The number of unauthorised absences have been released for all schools around West Sussex and show a town primary and secondary school near the top of the league of shame.

The Mill Primary School in Ifield had one of he highest percentage of unauthorised absences in the whole of West Sussex.

In 2008/9, two per cent of all absences recorded were unauthorised – the second worst in the county.

The News contacted The Mill for its response to the figures but the school declined to comment.

For secondary schools, Thomas Bennett also had the second highest percentage of unauthorised absences in the county with 1.9 per cent.

The lowest was Holy Trinity with 0.2 per cent.

The assistant head at Thomas Bennett has defended his school, saying the figures are misleading.

Mark Sheridan said: "All these figures show are the unauthorised figures.

"As a school we can show discretion when a pupil is listed as absent. It is up to us whether we class this as authorised or unauthorised.

"The only figures which we have to submit are attendance records, for which we have been highly commended.

"Our attendance figure is around 92.3 per cent and even our persistent absences have improved. The county council has named us as making excellent progress."

However, some Crawley schools fared better in the league tables, showing some of the lowest unauthorised absence figures in the county.

Five primary schools noted only 0.2 per cent of all absences were unauthorised.

These were; Bewbush Community Primary, Desmond Anderson, in Tilgate, Gossops Green Community Primary, Milton Mount in Pound Hill, and St Margaret's CofE, in Ifield.

The figures, which were released last Thursday, show the number of unauthorised absences for individual schools for the autumn term 2008 and spring term 2009.

The percentages refer to the number of absences in total, rather than individual pupils.