Wrexham Achieves Second Highest Primary Attendance Figures

Primary school attendance figures in Wrexham have risen to 94.3% this year putting the town joint second for the whole of Wales.

The figures released by the Welsh Government show Wrexham’s attendance was 1% higher than the national average of 93.3% and 0.3% higher than the Welsh Government target of 94%.

Significant work has been undertaken by staff in Wrexham schools in conjunction with the Education Social Work Service to implement a number of strategies to improve attendances.

This has included a further rolling out of electronic registration and individual lesson monitoring, Attendance Support Officers supplementing the work of Education Social Workers and the continuation of the “Anti Holidays in Term Time” campaign.

New innovations are planned for 2011/12, including the use of strategies suggested in the recently published Welsh Government’s document “All Wales Attendance Framework”.

The national advisory document to Education Welfare/Social Work Services in Wales was partially influenced by strategies developed by the Wrexham ESW service.

Wrexham Council said that the improvement was a result of hard work and determination by Wrexham schools and Education Social Work Service.

Council Leader, Cllr Ron Davies, said:

“This is excellent news. It is vitally important that our young people achieve their full potential and have increased aspirations for their adult life, education is key to this goal.

“I would like to thank all the staff involved in making these improvements which are making a significant contribution to improving the lives of our young people.”

Secondary school figures were published in September and showed Wrexham again had the second highest figures when compared with all 22 Welsh authorities.

The Welsh average for 2009/10 was 91.1% and improved in 2010/11 to 91.4% an improvement of 0.3%. However, Wrexham improved by 0.9% to 92.4% from 91.5 %. This also exceeded the Welsh Government target of 92%.