Managing School Attendance

Successful intervention strategies for reducing truancy

Ken Reid

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2013
• eBook ISBN: 9781135009441
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

Teachers and governments all agree that if you wish to raise educational standards then it's imperative to improve school attendance, and yet an average of around ten per cent of secondary pupils are missing school on a daily basis. Despite governments around the globe trying to address this situation, any improvements have been negligible and improvements in school attendance have been stubbornly hard to achieve.

As an internationally recognised expert on this topic, Professor Ken Reid offers workable, practical solutions to help schools improve attendance and to reduce non-attendance and truancy at government level, school and local authority level, individual pupil level and at the family level. Underpinned by the very latest research, but expanded upon with an accessible, practitioner focus, the issues covered by this topical text include:

• The causes of non-attendance and truancy
• Successful interventions and the evidence from research
• Reflections on the attempts to find national solutions
• Implementing home-school solutions
• An agenda for the future

Supporting throughout with case-studies and workable solutions to the most demanding of situations, this book will be essential reading for head teachers, deputy head teachers, teachers and any educational professional eager to raise standards for all.

Part I

The causes of school absenteeism and truancy

Part 1 of this book focuses upon the causes of school absenteeism and truancy from five different but inter-related perspectives. These are:

1)	An overview of school absenteeism and truancy;
2)	The home and social backgrounds of school absentees and truants;
3)	Their psychological traits;
4)	The educational causes of pupils’ non-attendance and truancy;
5)	A summary of recent changes in the causes of school absenteeism and truancy (Baker, Sigmon, and Nugent, 2001).

Chapter 1

Introduction

An overview of school absenteeism and truancy

Purpose

The purpose of this book is threefold. First, it intends to take stock on where we are in the search towards finding effective solutions for improving school attendance and reducing non-attendance and truancy. Second, it will suggest some ways of improving school attendance and combating truancy more effectively than hitherto has been the case. Third, it will examine and present some of the latest ideas and evidence on some of the best intervention strategies to achieve these first two aforementioned goals.

The book is specifically written from a range of complementary perspectives. First, as a result of the author’s research and professional activity in the field which, to date, has lasted for over forty years (Reid, 2012e). Second, as a consequence of the experience gained whilst chairing the two-year national review into behaviour and attendance in Wales (NBAR, 2007, 2008; Reid, 2009a, b, c, 2010a, b, 2012b, c, d) and the unique insights that this task provided from a professional, local and national perspective. Third, as a consequence of being involved in a very large number of professional development and training activities with teachers, head teachers, senior and middle managers, education social workers, education welfare officers, learning school mentors, classroom assistants, local authorities (and a wide range of their staff) throughout the United Kingdom (UK) as well as with school inspectors, parental and school governor groups and associations, voluntary sector organisations and their staff, educational psychologists, police organisations, government departments, youth workers, health and social services staff, amongst others.

All the evidence from the published literature is that despite successive and different governments spending large sums of money on their respective endeavours to improve school attendance and reduce truancy (and no one should ever underestimate the size and financial scale of these attempts: NPC, 2005a, b; NAO, 2005; KPMG, 2008) all the evidence is that improving school attendance and reducing truancy can be extremely difficult to achieve and, according to some reports, has remained little changed over the last thirty or more years (NAO, 2005; Reid, 2005a, 2011a). The same is true in some other countries, especially in certain parts of the United States (Campbell Collaboration Report, 2011). Nevertheless, the philosophy and innovative strategies adopted by governments in both the UK and world-wide have changed considerably over the years with some specific initiatives bearing more short-term fruit than others. For example, during the Blair Government’s years, large sums of money were thrown at the problem and the evidence suggests that their Excellence in Cities (EiC) initiative did enjoy some success. However, the temporary success engendered by the EiC has to be contrasted with the worsening position of those schools and areas excluded from the scheme (Reid, 2010a).

Politicians often think there is one simple solution and panacea which they can implement and all school absenteeism and truancy will suddenly cease. Sadly, the search for solutions is not that easy. The study of school absenteeism is a complex phenomenon and is becoming ever more complex over time as new issues emerge, cyber bullying, gang warfare and the knife culture to name but two recent developments. The study of school absenteeism and truancy is about having an understanding of sociology, psychology and social psychology, education and schooling, social policy, the law and much more. It is about understanding that the phenomena of school absenteeism and truancy requires not just an overview of all of these studies but also an ability to determine and resolve the various combinations of social, psychological and institutional factors that are involved to a greater or lesser extent in each individual case (Reid, 1985, 1999, 2000, 2002a). Whilst many truants skip schools for school-based reasons others do so because of or as well as their home backgrounds, psychological needs, low self-esteem, special or additional learning needs, amongst other possibilities. Each absentee and truant is unique. Yet, analysed collectively, they will have many traits in common, both boys and girls.

Guiding principles

For the purposes of the rest of this book, we will assume an ideal world. Hence, the ideas, concepts and proposed invention strategies and solutions will, to an extent, largely ignore the reality of existing economic realities and the ‘cuts’ agenda. This is not being naive. Rather, it is based on the assumption and belief that the needs of vulnerable children should come first and be a priority within any caring society. It is a recognition that if you wish to find solutions, there may be a cost factor; additional or otherwise as well as those additional resource needs in terms of professionals’ time, energy, commitment and experience. Moreover, the long-term costs for society are much greater anyway when these problems are not tackled at source because of the eventual and huge additional costs to social service and social care budgets, unemployment benefit, the police, probation and prison services, which former truants and school absentees generate and which dwarf current expenditure on improving school attendance and reducing truancy (Reid, 2002a; NAO, 2005; NPC, 2005a, b; Jones and Straker, 2006). As the NAO Report (2005) concluded, the consequences of doing nothing will eventually cost the tax payer more in the long-term.

Therefore, my overriding, ideal and guiding principles behind this book are, whenever possible, to:

a)	enable all pupils, irrespective of ability, to achieve success;
b)	facilitate and raise the self-esteem of vulnerable pupils;
c)	enable all pupils and their parents or carers to value their schooling and their own learning and achievement (Ellis, Morgan and Reid, 2013);
d)	ensure that all professionals are properly trained for their tasks; something which has not always happened in the past (Reid, 2004a, b, 2006a, b, 2007a; Reid et al., 2007, 2008; NBAR, 2008; WG, 2009; NBAR2, 2011);
e)	complement existing national and local school improvement and effectiveness strategies alongside individual professional, school, local authority, regional and national development plans;
f)	make parents and/or carers much more aware and responsible for the ownership of their children’s schooling and ideally, a key part of the solution and appropriate intervention strategies (Ellis et al., 2013);
g)	place improved literacy and numeracy at the centre of successful intervention strategies and national solutions (NBAR, 2008; WG, 2009; NBAR2, 2011);
h)	change the attitudes of some teachers and their schools, some officials and politicians towards less able, difficult and often, underachieving pupils and towards their learning needs and curriculum (NBAR2, 2011; Reid, 2012b).

How to increase school attendance

Sanchez (2012), who is based at Stanford University, and following research undertaken in Redwood City, California, suggests a four-fold strategy should be implemented by schools and local authorities (LAs)/school districts in order to reduce truancy and chronic or persistent absenteeism. This is based on a prevention, early intervention, targeted intervention and legal intervention paradigm.

1. Prevention

Schools should establish sound and reasonable policies to set clear standards and high expectations for their students; create a positive school climate; increase engagement and personalisation with students and their families through good family involvement practice; create a culturally responsive environment; educate parents about the risk factors for adolescent absenteeism and truancy, including gang involvement, violence and other anti-social behaviours; create smaller learning community structures, and effective mentoring and student advisory programmes.

2. Early intervention

Schools should reduce barriers to attendance, especially in primary or elementary schools. If pupils’ attendance is hampered by families needing, for example, medical attention, consider arranging for a health professional to visit the school. Increase and improve the school’s monitoring of pupils’ attendance and inform parents as soon as possible when they are absent or when the students begin to show patterns of absenteeism.

3. Targeted intervention

Design specific school- and community-level interventions for persistent non-attendees. These might include better or more individualised instruction, improving and increasing family involvement, providing clear incentives for improving attendance, and assigning either adult or peer mentors to work with students who show patterns of school absence.

4. Legal intervention

Use the courts for parents of those older students who have not responded properly to all the school’s other intervention strategies. However, this can be a double-edged sword as some punishments and court action can further deter pupils from returning to school and alienate them both from the school and their teachers.

Interventions with school absentees and truants

Recently, there has been a growing interest in the search for successful intervention strategies for school absenteeism and truancy. This literature is of an international nature (Kearney, 2001). However, much of the research and exp...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• List of illustrations
• Preface
• Acknowledgements
• Part 1: The causes of school absenteeism and truancy
• Part 2: The management of school absenteeism and truancy
• Part 3: Case studies of successful interventions
• Bibliography
• Index