An urgent national crisis: The number of children missing school soars
Charlie has been to school for just a handful of days in the past three years.
Each morning, his school uniform is placed at the end of his bed by his nan, Teresa.
And each morning Charlie refuses to put it on.
“I don’t like the people, the teachers, the classes or the uniform,” he tells me.
I’ve come to meet 13-year-old Charlie, who lives with his nan and father James in Blackpool, to try to understand why he is missing so much school and what is being done about it.
Charlie is bright and friendly, with a huge passion for boxing, training regularly at a local gym.
Charlie is a passionate boxer
“I think COVID has a lot to do with this,” says Teresa.
“He didn’t want to go back after COVID. He was asking why he couldn’t continue learning at home on his computer. I said everyone is getting back to normal.”
An urgent national crisis
Charlie is not alone.
Since the pandemic, tens of thousands of children have not returned to school. It’s an urgent national crisis.
And witnessing Charlie’s refusal takes us to the heart of that crisis.
The latest figures from the Department for Education show that more than 125,000 children were out of school more than in school for the first term of this academic year. That is double the number before the pandemic.
To see what is being done about it, Sky News has been given rare access to a special unit whose job it is to make sure children are in school.
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A generation missing out on school
The Pupil Welfare Service, run by Blackpool Council, works with children who have attendance problems to get them into class.
Natasha Armstead, who manages the service, says demand is high.
“I’ve worked for the council in this area for 23 years now, and this is literally the busiest we’ve ever been,” said Natasha.
“We have done just over 5,000 family home visits since September just to address the attendance issue.
“If we can get families talking to us and start to understand the challenges they are facing then we can start to help and make a difference to the child’s attendance at school.”
The service has worked with Charlie – liaising with school to arrange a reduced timetable, learning in isolation – steps to coax him back through the gates.
The Pupil Welfare Officer working with him says when he’s at school he is well behaved and has lots of friends.
The law says all school-age children must receive a formal education whether at school, home school, or an alternative provision. But attendance is mandatory.
If children do not go to school their parents can be fined or face up to three months in prison.
Already fined thousands of pounds
Charlie’s dad James has already been fined thousands of pounds because his son has missed so much school.
He says he has tried everything, but adds that he believes the curriculum fails to inspire his son, who has ambitions to be a professional boxer.
“The way he looks at it, he’s doing lessons that he doesn’t need for his future plans,” said James.
“And I do agree with that. I think people should be pushed really into what they really want to do, not just sitting down learning science or whatever that they don’t need for their future.”
James says he worries the next time he will get more than a fine.
‘Next step… prison’
“I think the next step from what I’ve been told is behind bars. Prison. If it means he doesn’t have to put himself through all this trauma then so be it. My son comes first.”
Last year, more than 16,000 parents were fined an average of £250 for their children missing school.
‘My son comes first’, says Charlie’s dad James
The government says it is trying to address the issue piloting so-called attendance hubs and mentors in the worst affected areas.
Poverty is one of the main causes of low attendance. Three times as many children receiving free school meals are absent from school than those who don’t get them.
And children with special educational needs and disabilities are also more likely to miss school than other children – 400,000 persistently absent children have a special educational need.
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But an emerging issue is mental health and anxiety, says Natasha from Blackpool’s Pupil Welfare Service.
“I think being shut in a bedroom for a couple of years and then trying to get back out again and get back into the systems has been a massive change of habit,” she says.
“There was loss of social skills with loss of confidence. There’s some anxiety and some of it has crept beyond anxiety into mental health issues.”
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Charlie gives school another chance
Charlie eventually agrees to go into school and his dad James drives him.
But as the car pulls up to the school gates, Charlie becomes hesitant.
His head falls into his hands.
“I hate it here,” he sobs. “School sucks because I can’t do anything.”
James tries to reassure him and eventually, over the course of half an hour, two teachers try to get Charlie to come in.
But nothing works and his day ends where it began, at home in his bedroom.
Charlie’s story, a snapshot into the lives of thousands of children, struggling with school and falling behind on their education as each days passes.
Prosecutors are considering whether to bring further criminal charges against Lucy Letby over the deaths of babies at two hospitals where she worked
The Crown Prosecution Service said it had received “a full file of evidence from Cheshire Constabulary asking us to consider further allegations in relation to deaths and non-fatal collapses of babies at the Countess of Chester Hospital and Liverpool Women’s Hospital”.
“We will now carefully consider the evidence to determine whether any further criminal charges should be brought,” it added.
“As always, we will make that decision independently, based on the evidence and in line with our legal test.”
Letby, 35, was found guilty of murdering seven children and attempting to murder seven more between June 2015 and June 2016 while working in the neonatal unit of the Countess of Chester Hospital and is currently serving 15 whole-life orders.
Letby worked at the Countess of Chester Hospital and Liverpool Women’s Hospital
She is understood to have carried out two work placements at Liverpool Women’s Hospital, where she trained as a student, between October and December 2012, and January and February 2015.
Police said in December that Letby was interviewed in prison as part of an investigation into more baby deaths and non-fatal collapses.
A Cheshire Constabulary spokesperson said: “We can confirm that Cheshire Constabulary has submitted a full file of evidence to the CPS for charging advice regarding the ongoing investigation into deaths and non-fatal collapses of babies at the neo-natal units of both the Countess of Chester Hospital and the Liverpool Women’s Hospital as part of Operation Hummingbird.”
Detectives previously said the investigation was looking into the full period of time that Letby worked as a nurse, covering the period from 2012 to 2016 and including a review of 4,000 admissions of babies.
Letby’s lawyer Mark McDonald said: “The evidence of the innocence of Lucy Letby is overwhelming,” adding: “We will cross every bridge when we get to it but if Lucy is charged I know we have a whole army of internationally renowned medical experts who will totally undermine the prosecution’s unfounded allegations.”
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Three managers at the hospital where Lucy Letby worked have been arrested on suspicion of gross negligence manslaughter.
On Tuesday, it was confirmed that three managers at the Countess of Chester hospital had been arrested on suspicion of gross negligence manslaughter in a separate investigation.
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Police said the suspects, who occupied senior positions at the hospital between 2015 and 2016, have all been bailed pending further inquiries.
There is also an investigation into corporate manslaughter at the hospital, which began in October 2023.
A public inquiry has also been examining the hospital’s response to concerns raised about Letby before her arrest.
In May, it was announced the inquiry’s final report into how the former nurse was able to commit her crimes will now be published early next year.
Earlier this year, Letby’s lawyers called for the suspension of the inquiry, claiming there was “overwhelming and compelling evidence” that her convictions were unsafe.
In February, an international panel of neonatologists and paediatric specialists told reporters that poor medical care and natural causes were the reasons for the collapses and deaths.
Their evidence has been passed to the Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC), which investigates potential miscarriages of justice, and Letby’s legal team hopes her case will be referred back to the Court of Appeal.
A power outage that shut Heathrow Airport earlier this year, causing travel chaos for more than 270,000 passengers, was caused by a “catastrophic failure” of equipment in a nearby substation, according to a new report.
Experts say the fire at the North Hyde Substation, which supplies electricity to Heathrow, started following the failure of a high-voltage electrical insulator known as a bushing, before spreading.
The failure was “most likely” caused by moisture entering the equipment, according to the report.
Two chances were also missed that could have prevented the failure, experts found, the first in 2018 when a higher-than-expected level of moisture was found in oil samples.
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Moment Heathrow substation ignites
Such a reading meant “an imminent fault and that the bushing should be replaced”, according to guidance by the National Grid Electricity Transmission.
However, the report by National Energy System Operator (NESO) said the appropriate responses to such a serious issue were “not actioned”, including in 2022 when basic maintenance was postponed.
“The issue therefore went unaddressed,” the report added.
The design and configuration of the airport’s internal power network meant the loss of just one of its three supply points would “result in the loss of power to operationally critical systems, leading to a suspension of operations for a significant period”, the report added.
Heathrow – which is Europe’s biggest airport – closed for around 16 hours on 21 March following the fire, before reopening at about 6pm.
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Heathrow bosses were ‘warned about substation’
Around 1,300 flights were cancelled and more than 270,000 air passenger journeys were disrupted.
Tens of millions of pounds were lost, thousands of passengers were stranded, and questions were raised about the resilience of the UK’s infrastructure.
More than 71,000 domestic and commercial customers lost power as a result of the fire and the resulting power outage, the report said.
NEOS chief executive, Fintan Slye, said there “wasn’t the control within their [National Grid’s] asset management systems that identified that this [elevated moisture levels] got missed.
“They identified a fault, [but] for some reason the transformer didn’t immediately get pulled out of service and get repaired.
“There was no control within the system that looked back and said ‘oh, hang on a second, you forgot to do this thing over here’.”
Sky’s science and technology editor, Tom Clarke, pointed to the age of the substation’s equipment, saying “some of these things are getting really very old now, coming to the end of their natural lives, and this is an illustration of what can happen if they are not really well maintained”.
The report also highlights a lack of joined-up thinking, he said, as “grid operators don’t know who’s critical national infrastructure on the network, and they don’t have priority”.
Responding to the report’s findings, a Heathrow spokesperson said: “A combination of outdated regulation, inadequate safety mechanisms, and National Grid’s failure to maintain its infrastructure led to this catastrophic power outage.
“We expect National Grid to be carefully considering what steps they can take to ensure this isn’t repeated.
“Our own Review, led by former Cabinet Minister Ruth Kelly, identified key areas for improvement and work is already underway to implement all 28 recommendations.”
In May, Ms Kelly’s investigation revealed that the airport’s chief executive couldn’t be contacted as the crisis unfolded because his phone was on silent.
Energy Secretary Ed Miliband, who commissioned the NESO report, called it “deeply concerning”, because “known risks were not addressed by the National Grid Electricity Transmission”.
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Mr Miliband said energy regulator Ofgem, which opened an investigation on Wednesday after the report was published, is investigating “possible licence breaches relating to the development and maintenance of its electricity system at North Hyde.
“There are wider lessons to be learned from this incident. My department, working across government, will urgently consider the findings and recommendations set out by NESO and publish a response to the report in due course.”
The Metropolitan Police previously confirmed on 25 March that officers had “found no evidence to suggest that the incident was suspicious in nature”.
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