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Newport is on track to record the second-highest level of pupil attendance in Wales this year, but remains below pre-pandemic levels.

A city council report shows a pupil attendance rate of 91.7% so far this academic year, above the national average of 90.9% and second only to Monmouthshire.

Attendance rates in Newport have climbed gradually since 2022 but remain slightly behind those recorded before Covid in 2018/19 – a pattern also seen in the national figures.

Cllr Deb Davies, the council’s cabinet member for education, told a scrutiny committee attendance “matters” and it is “imperative” children are in school.

The council report also shows that compared with the national averages, Newport has a smaller attendance gap between children who receive free school meals and those who don’t, and the city is also in line with Welsh rates of persistent absence.

Committee member Cllr John Reynolds called the figures for Newport “very encouraging”.

Cllr Deb Harvey asked what the council was doing to raise secondary school attendance rates to be in line with primary schools.

Sarah Morgan, the council’s head of education, said the council looks “forensically” at how each school manages attendance and wanted to encourage a consistent approach to tackling absenteeism.

Cllr Debbie Jenkins asked whether there was a link between low attendance and a lack of free school transport options.

She said some pupils from her Pillgwenlly ward who attend The John Frost School lived just outside the three-mile qualifying distance for free bus transport.

Cllr Jenkins called a designated safe walking route “questionable” and said parents who have more than one child at the school faced “extortionate” public transport costs.

But education welfare service manager Louise Moore said there was no clear evidence that referrals for low attendance were linked to transport at The John Frost School, adding it was one of Newport’s most-improved secondary schools for attendance rates.

The committee also heard the city is around average for short-term and permanent exclusion rates, but had recorded some of the lowest rates of longer-term exclusions in Wales in recent years.

Cllr Davies said the council is preparing to launch a pilot scheme designed to produce a “consistent approach” to behaviour and reduce exclusion rates.

This will support young people who are “particularly vulnerable to exploitation” and will run “systematically” across the city’s secondary schools for at least the next year.

The cabinet member said the intention is to reduce youth violence, prevent incidents and bad behaviour from escalating, and improve professional learning for staff.

She said the pilot “will result in safer school environments”.