Students skip school on Fridays using the excuse “mom and dad are home”

More students are skipping school on Friday for copying examples of parents working from home, the Children’s Ombudsman warned.

Dame Rachel de Souza said she was “seriously concerned” at the number of continued absences and children dropping out of classes.

Some are using the “mom and dad are home” excuse to skip school as parents increasingly choose to work from home at the end of the week, she said.

It comes as bosses struggle to get employees back into the office five days a week, with many employees working from home on Mondays and Fridays.

Around 818,000 of the 1.6 million children who were consistently absent during the 2021-22 fall and spring semesters were out of school for reasons other than illness, Ms de Souza said.

Dame Rachel de Souza (pictured) said she was “seriously concerned” at the number of continued absences and children dropping out of class

She told MPs on the Education Committee: “We’re seeing a huge amount of absenteeism on Friday that wasn’t there before. Parents are at home on Fridays.

“We have evidence from children, ‘Well you know mom and dad are home, stay home.’

“We need our kids back to school and I just can’t urge everyone enough to sing this from the rooftops.”

Figures from the Office for National Statistics last month showed that one in six employees still works from home five days a week.

More than a quarter of those in work combine teleworking with trips to the office. And with commuters hit by train strikes, four in 10 have spent at least a day at home in recent months.

Dame Rachel said the main reasons children do not go to school are that their special educational needs are not being met, as well as anxiety and mental health issues.

However, she added that there is also a group of students who “just haven’t come back” since the pandemic.

Alice Wilcock, education director at the Think Tanks Center for Social Justice, spoke to MPs on Tuesday about the role of parents, adding: “Particularly post lockdown, I think parents are faced with social media that they are unfamiliar with that they are not necessarily familiar with the online world.

“Bullying used to be in the classroom and quite visible; Now it’s online and parents don’t feel able to address it.

“And neither do parents feel equipped to combat the gambling addiction that began during the pandemic.”

Source: | This article originally belongs to Dailymail.co.uk