Views sought on proposed strategy to improve school attendance

Date published: 8 December 2025

The proposed Attendance Matters Strategy sets out six priority areas to support children and young people to attend school every day:

• Promoting a nurturing environment to understand and reduce Emotionally Based School Non Attendance (EBSNA);
• Ensuring inclusive strategies to promote positive behaviour;
• Using data to identify vulnerable children and young people and delivering early interventions;
• Understanding why children are missing from formal education and taking steps to address this;
• Piloting a whole community approach to improving attendance; and
• Transforming support for schools and settings.

Launching the public consultation, Paul Givan said: 

“Recent trends in pupil absence show almost 82,500 pupils are currently missing 10% or more of their school days. There has been a significant increase in these figures since 2018/19, and this is a worrying trend that we should all be concerned about.

“School leaders have told me the impact of the pandemic on our children and young people should not be underestimated. This has consequences at primary and post-primary level, making the challenge of raising achievement and closing the gap more challenging.”

The Minister continued: 

"If a child is happy in school, they will feel a sense of belonging, feel safe and supported, and will want to attend.

“My Department’s updated attendance strategy reflects the importance of understanding why pupils are absent and the benefits of early intervention in strengthening our approach.  It seeks to highlight the impact of non-attendance and seeks ways to put effective measures in place.”

Paul Givan concluded: 

“I would encourage all those with an interest in this issue, particularly families and schools, to respond to the consultation and ensure your views are heard as we collectively find ways to ensure attendance is valued and achieved.”

The consultation will run from 8th December to 6th March 2026 and can be found here - www.education-ni.gov.uk/consultations/consultation-pupil-attendance-strategy-attendance-matters