Truants at secondary schools said they truants at secondary schools said they truanted because they were bored with school.
However, despite a raft of punitive measures designed to bring persistent truants to book, the problem refuses to go away.
This will now target more than 10,000 serial truants who account for 1 in 5 of all instances of truancy in England.
The do-gooders continued to protest despite reports flooding in from around the country of regular truants being hauled off to school by shocked parents.
We recognize that a group of children at particular disadvantage are those who are excluded from school or who are frequent truants.