EXPENSIVE Government plans to fight truancy in England have flopped - but efforts by a struggling Huddersfield school are paying dividends.
A new National Audit Office report says nearly 500,000 of the 6.7m state school pupils are absent every day.
But the vast majority of these absences are authorised for health reasons.
A seven-year, £885m Department for Education and Skills campaign to improve attendance has seen absences cut from 7.6% to 6.7% of school days.
But truancy has remained steady at about 0.7%.
The NAO, Whitehall's spending watchdog, has told the department to work more closely with schools to improve schemes to cut absence.
It also wants the department to put more emphasis on primary schools, to get children used to attending, and make sure parents understand the importance of their children turning up.
The report added: "Pupils with high absence rates are much more likely to leave school with few or no qualifications.
"They are more at risk of being drawn into undesirable activities, including crime and anti-social behaviour."
But Steve Britton, acting head at Fartown High School, which was recently put back into special measures, said he was hopeful of cutting unauthorised absence at the school.
Over the last two years new tactics to get children into school have seen unauthorised absences cut from 7.7% to 5.4%.
Mr Britton added: "We have high hopes and expectations as we continue work so that the figures will come down further."
He said the school had recently undertaken a major curriculum review, which would better suit students.
Mr Britton added: "It's about providing personal learning packages for students.
"Parents and families also make a big difference.
"With their support, we have lowered unauthorised attendance and with their continued help we hope to continue improving."
