A BARROW headteacher has taken part in a podcast looking into the increasing number of children missing from school.

The BBC Radio 5 Live podcast, Unravelled, sees journalist Terri White, who is herself a survivor of child abuse, investigate the reasoning behind the absences.

The series was developed in response to the murder of Arthur Labinjo-Hughes’ in 2020, when he was kept out of school as well, as the revelation that up to 100,000 children dropped off England’s school registers in lockdown.

The five-part series features Parkside Academy headteacher Caroline Walker.

In 2018, the school’s attendance was 91.3 per cent, and for 2022 it is 97.3 per cent.

“All of our children have returned to the classroom post-covid but that’s all down to our hard work,” said Caroline. “Our school is in a very deprived area. We have 60 per cent of pupils on free school meals.

“Most of their parents are out of work. During lockdown we knew we had lots of vulnerable kids to look after.

“We used our mini bus to pick up 50 vulnerable kids each day and bring them to school, even though their parents weren’t key workers.

“The ones we couldn’t get into schools we provided laptops to and also Wi-Fi dongles (75 households) which were donated by Vodafone.

“We wanted to give our kids a routine. They were coming online late still in pjs, they were fighting for space with siblings so struggled to find a quiet place to work, etc.”

The headteacher explained that home visits were carried out on some vulnerable children during the lockdown.

She said: “We were very worried about a couple of our children during lockdown and had to do home visits.

“We rang every family ever week and some every day. We door knocked. We did a bedtime story every day.

“We took a football around to every child in school to try and get them out.

“It wasn't just about the learning aspect. We did live yoga sessions every week. We did online stories every day. Some celebs did that for us as well.”

The podcast will be released on March 22.