Setting Your Attendance Culture

Do we need to develop a school culture of attendance?

The 'big' questions to consider here before you even start to think about the detail of developing your culture are;

• Is improving attendance a priority for us at the moment?

• What might we not improve if we choose to focus on attendance in our school culture?

• Are there other priorities that we need to focus on in our school culture that will indirectly improve attendance and may be a better way to go?

So we want to focus on developing a culture of attendance, what next?

There is quite a lot of research and information out there as to what to focus on when developing a culture of attendance.  The key factors that come up regularly are:

What can we do to make the school more welcoming for our pupils?

• • • It may be that there are many things that you can do in your schools to make the school more welcoming and attendance will improve as a bi-product of this.  Think about what your pupils see, hear and experience every day.  Is the school a physically welcoming place to be?  Are the pupils warmly greeted by the staff and their peers?  Do the pupils feel safe and have friends at school?  Are school lunches nice and the playground a friendly place to be?  Are lessons engaging and well taught?  Do your pupils feel a general sense of well-being when at school?

What can we do to overcome barriers to pupils attending?

• • • Do we have good procedures in place to deal with absence and the various causes of absence?  Can we be flexible when dealing with attendance issues?  How do we deal with pupils with long-term illness or disability to facilitate their attendance?  How do we manage challenging behaviour and bullying issues to ensure that they are not a barrier to attendance?

How can we engage parents?

• • • Parental engagement can be a particular challenge.  Sometimes, in the short-term a leader may, quite rightly,  challenge parental habits in regard to attendance, particularly if attendance has been historically poor.  This is quite a common strategy in a school 'turnaround' situation when leaders need to raise standards and actively set a new culture.  In this case it may be appropriate to take a 'hard line' with parents regarding attendance rather than a supportive one.  However, in the longer term, it will be beneficial to attempt to actively engage parents.

What is our stance going to be on fines etc?

• • • It is always worth considering where you think your academy should be on a continuum where a supportive approach to absence is at one end and a punitive approach to absence is at the other end.  Where is the right point for the academy to 'sit' on this continuum at the present time (this can and will change over time)?  If this is discussed and agreed at leadership level then it can make daily decision-making much easier.  Will you have a policy of never authorising holidays and fining for absence or do you need to take a more pragmatic approach?  Again, there is no one right answer, it will depend on local circumstances, although you must always ensure that you are consistent with a Trust-wide approach to attendance.  

What is our stance going to be on rewarding good attendance?

• • • Google 'improving school attendance' and you will see lots of articles encouraging rewards for good attendance as best practice.  However, the research doesn't actually seem to support this approach and it can be expensive and time-consuming.  Also, you need to consider the possibility that you could be challenged as being discriminatory against pupils with a medical condition (disability is a protected characteristic under the Equality Act 2010) if you reward attendance levels that cannot be reasonably met by these pupils.   You need to decide what will work best for your community and develop a consistent approach.  Not rewarding great attendance can be less contentious (see this article as a typical example of why it can cause issues) (or this one written by the parent of a child with a chronic medical condition) but don't let this put you off if you do decide to reward (but be ready for the 'grey areas' of rewarding attendance).

    • One good idea for 'rewarding' attendance that I have come across lately that works well and straddles the border between extrinsic and intrinsic motivation is the 'Attendance Boogie'.  Full credit here goes to the staff at Thomas Hinderwell for this idea.  Its simple but effective - any class that gets 100% attendance that day gets to do the 'attendance boogie' at the end of the day.  Take a look at the children at THPA enjoying an 'attendance boogie' below. You can use your own music or even adopt the Attendance Song, again, see below for YouTube link.