An Essential Guide to Improving Attendance in your School

Practical resources for all school managers

Ken Reid

• Publisher: David Fulton Publishers
• Year: 2013
• Print ISBN: 9781138168183
• eBook ISBN: 9781134661879
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

In this engaging book Professor Ken Reid focuses on the needs of school professionals and leaders, providing them with workable, achievable solutions to radically reducing their truancy rates. As well as discussing the importance of regular attendance and the importance of sound leadership, Professor Reid provides:

• A highly effective whole school strategy for use in both primary and secondary schools
• Checklists on good practice
• Early intervention strategies
• Advice on using attendance panels
• Guidance on effective monitoring schemes

Supporting throughout with case-studies, sample letters, reports, attendance calendars and action plans, this book will be an essential staff-room resource for head teachers, deputy head teachers, teachers and any educational professional eager to raise standards for all.

Chapter 1

The importance of regular attendance

The need to encourage regular attendance

There are many good reasons for encouraging regular school attendance. Research (Reid, 1999, 2013) indicates that pupils who become absentees and truants are more likely than their peers to confront a range of difficult challenges throughout the rest of their adult lives. A wide range of studies show that truancy and school absenteeism is closely linked to:

• juvenile and adult crime

• adult psychiatric problems (e.g. frequent temper tantrums)

• pathological disorders

• depression

• frequent bouts of unemployment and/or job changing

• low-level employment tasks

• low income levels

• constant need for help from the state through income support and housing benefit

• poverty

• higher rates of separation, marital disharmony and divorce

• marrying someone who also missed a lot of school and played truant

• higher rates of involvement with social services and health agencies

• higher rates of becoming a teenage parent

• low self-esteem in adult life and living a lonely and isolated adult life

• illiteracy

• having poor reading skills

• having no, few or very poor academic qualifications

• becoming NEET (not in education, employment or training)

• becoming homeless in later life

• suffering from more mental health problems, drug- and alcohol-related issues in adult life

• becoming engaged in such worthless time-filling activities as persistently whiling away time through aimless ‘street wandering’, especially in inner-city areas

• having children who become truants (second, third and fourth generation truancy)

• being excluded from school

• having poor attitudes towards school and their children’s education both at home (e.g. with homework) and by being more reluctant than other parental groups to participate in school functions or other activities (e.g. parents’ evenings or parent–teacher associations).

Therefore, missing school, regular and persistent absence and truancy are potentially extremely serious short- and long-term issues for:

• the pupils’ themselves

• their prospects for their longer-term adult lives

• their schooling and education

• the long-term resource needs and economy of the country

• the quality of the future lives of their children and families.

Let me re-emphasise this point by providing a few specific examples. First, studies have shown that:

• In one year in London, a third of all car thefts, 25% of burglaries and 20% of criminal damage including vandalism were committed by 10- to 16-year-olds in one year by pupils truanting from school.

• Up to two-thirds of juvenile offenders committed the crime for which they ended up in a young offenders unit whilst truanting from school (Reid, 1999: 2–4);

• Crime in inner cities reduces significantly on days when truancy patrols take place, whether they involve the police or not.

• Parents of persistent absentees and truants provide less support for their children’s education and schools than other parental groups and have less supportive attitudes towards both teachers and their schools (Dalziel and Henthorne, 2005).

• It has been estimated that if persistent absenteeism and truancy could be resolved and/or reduced much earlier, millions, if not billions, in the longer term could be wiped off the state benefit system (NAO, 2005; NPC 2005a, b).

• However, over a considerable period of time, and despite all the best efforts of government and professionals, truancy and persistent school absenteeism have proved extremely stubborn to reduce (NAO, 2005: NPC, 2005a).

In addition, the link between attainment and regular school attendance is irrefutable. The evidence shows that pupils who attend school regularly do better at every phase of schooling (SCRE, 1995). It is therefore essential that pupils develop regular habits of attending school daily as early as possible in their school lives, from preschooling and the nursery years onwards. Pupils who attend school regularly achieve better grades in external examinations (e.g. GCSE) than those who frequently miss school. Regular and occasional school absentees tend not only to do less well in public examinations, but often leave school with either very poor grades, at best, or no certification whatsoever, which in turn culminates in lowering their longterm prospects in their future lives.

Research has found that pupils who miss just 17 sessions or 8.5 days in a year will most probably drop a grade level in their exams, which, in turn, could affect their future life chances. Yet, in schools in the United Kingdom (UK), far too many pupils are considered to be ‘persistently absent’, which normally means that they make less than 80% attendance. There are also large numbers of pupils whose attendance is below 90%. These absences alone add up to around four weeks off school a year. If the same level of absences was recorded for an individual pupil over a seven-year period, he or she would have missed approximately the equivalent of one year’s teaching within schools (Manchester, 2013).

Even worse, young people who are frequently absent from school are more likely to become involved in, or a victim of, crime and antisocial behaviour. By contrast, regular good attendance suggests that pupils are more likely to be enthusiastic about their learning, to do well and to take part in healthy, enjoyable activities both at school and in the local community. It is for this reason that all schools, parents and teachers should encourage pupils to make 100% attendance or to be as close to it as possible.

There are some other good reasons for encouraging regular school attendance, as well. Children and students who develop poor or irregular patterns of school attendance are at risk of not achieving their educational, social or psychological potential in a number of different ways. These kinds of pupils may include symptoms of being:

• socially isolated

• at risk of harm during times of absence

• more likely to be involved in socially unacceptable and/or illegal activities

• less knowledgeable and competent and lacking in the understanding of even basic concepts

• suffering from low general levels of self-esteem and have low academic selfconcepts

• feeling insecure, unhappy or anti-social when in school

• unable to make friends or having fewer friends than some of their peers

• isolated from social groups in school and in some other in- and out-of-school activities

• more likely to leave school early

• over-represented in the juvenile justice system

• brought to their first-start school with a range of apparent social and/or learning problems from an early age

• found to have literacy and numeracy deficiencies

• diagnosed as having special or additional learning needs

• the victims of in-school or external bullying and harassment, including cyber bullying.

Research evidence also shows that many pupils can soon graduate from the initial and occasional levels of non-attendance to the persistent stage and truancy, with the number of causes and reasons given for missing school risin...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• List of tables
• Preface
• Acknowledgements
• 1 The importance of regular attendance
• 2 Improving school attendance
• 3 A whole-school attendance strategy at the primary level
• 4 Some effective good practice in schools
• 5 The use of checklists 1
• 6 Checklists 2 on good practice
• 7 Promoting good practice
• 8 An early intervention strategy and supporting activities
• 9 Using attendance panels
• 10 Using advanced attendance panels
• Bibliography
• Index