Traffic and travel problems were blamed for the high proportion of unauthorised absence among pupils at Bishop Douglass RC High School.
The school, in Hamilton Road, East Finchley, recorded 6.1 in half-days lost due to unauthorised absence twice that of the next worst. Headteacher John Meadows said students came from as far afield as Islington. Pupils who missed registration were recorded as absent even if they were actually in lessons.
"If you record it honestly and we do then that's how it works out," he said. "It isn't truancy, it's that the vast majority of that 6.1 is not because pupils are away, it's because they have travel problems."
November 21, 2001 18:58
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