Attendance

Attendance can be defined as participation in a programme of educational activities which are arranged and agreed by the school. This can be comprised of some of the below:

What is school attendance?

Why focus on school attendance?

Some pupils experience significant difficulties in attending school leading to prolonged periods of non-attendance. It is important for us to consider how to promote school attendance for a number of reasons.

Research also tells us that poor attendance at school can have a number of negative impacts, including: poorer peer relationships, emotional and behavioural difficulties, poorer employment opportunities, and lower levels of attainment.

What can cause poor attendance?

The causes and the impact of poor attendance are known to be complex and multifaceted. It can be helpful to unpack the definitions around non-attendance, as these have evolved over time. Previous terms include “school phobia”, ‘”school refusal”, “school withdrawal’” and “truancy” (Kearney, 2008, Pellegrini, 2007). More recent definitions used within practice include “emotionally based school absence” (EBSA), as coined by West Sussex Educational Psychology (2018).

Emotionally based school avoidance is a term used to describe children and young people who have severe difficulty in attending school due to emotional factors, often resulting in prolonged absences from school’ (West Sussex Guidance, 2018, p.3). Some of these emotional factors are shown in the diagram below.

The term EBSA is often used rather than “school refusal” now, as children and young people in this situation are often not refusing, as they have a desire to attend, but simply feel as though they cannot. The children and young people concerned often experience emotional upset or dysregulation and may feel overwhelmed. In these instances, the easiest way for them to cope is to avoid school - this is defined as a maladaptive coping strategy.

Every pupil is an individual and therefore their personal situation must be understood to enable those working within them to create a bespoke package of support, which aims to promote their ability to engage and attend school.

What is Aberdeenshire doing to support attendance?

Aberdeenshire’s guidance (linked below) around supporting school attendance is based on the current evidence base of the factors which are associated with positive outcomes. These include:

• Early intervention

• Collaborative working: working with families, school staff and the young person

• Person centred assessment, planning and intervention according to individual needs

• Emphasis on the need for a quick return to the educational setting alongside intervention, support and adaptations with the school and home environment (Baker and Bishop, 2015).

Aberdeenshire’s guidance highlights that schools should actively engage with parents to try to ensure that any barriers to good attendance are removed.

It is important to not jump to intervention planning without properly gathering and analysing the information about the presenting reasons and underlying reasons for non-attendance. Interventions and support should be individually tailored to the specific needs of the individual. The intervention and support plan (or action plan) should be collaboratively produced with the team around the child, including their family. The young person’s voice and views are vital. The action planning process could be at single or multi-agency level.

talking-to-your-school-about-ARA.pdf

Talking to your school about anxiety related absence

The National Autism Implementation Team and Enquire have put together tips for parents and carers to help when talking to school about the challenges of anxiety and school absence.

Wellbeing-Teenagers.pdf