Improving Attendance
Set Play
Introduction
School is such a great place to be. It’s a place of hope, excitement, learning now in preparation for the future, a place of awe and wonder. It’s the place where students experience things they never knew existed, where they can find their passion, and ultimately their purpose To be a part of all that school can offer, students need to attend regularly.
Every day in school counts This is for a few reasons Of course, missing lessons means missing learning, falling behind and then the need to catch up. But school is about so much more than lessons. Regular attendance helps students feel a sense of belonging, and the sense of self investment being important Attending the trip, visiting the theatre company, being with peers in social times and having a network of adults to help students navigate life are all just as important as learning the curriculum. We want students to feel a sense of belonging and to thrive in school This only comes from regular attendance.
Our school improvement pyramid reminds us of the foundational, fundamental elements of excellent education Clearly, safeguarding is at the heart of everything we do but attendance, regular, on-time attendance has a huge impact on both safeguarding and students’ success in school. Amongst some students and their families, the pandemic left a residue of changed mindsets around regular attendance. Some students still haven’t come back to habitual regular attendance.
Attendance issues aren’t just as a result of the pandemic and aren’t affecting all students equally. Broadly, we see our disadvantaged students having worse attendance than others We’ve also seen weaker mental health and well-being for some students becoming more of a barrier than in the past.
Our determination is to make sure that all students attend regularly. Where we see that other schools in a similar context have made sure this is happening, we will seek to understand why they were successful. When we have seemingly unresolvable issues, it’s up to us to be the trailblazers, finding out what works to engage students and their families with school so that we can transform students’ life chances by unlocking their academic and personal potential.
Our approach to attendance takes the most recent insights to form a research-informed, common approach to attendance so that all of our students, especially the disadvantaged, can become all and more than they thought they could be. The detailed literature review can be accessed here.
Where are we now?
In 2022-3 the national school absence rate stood at 7 5%, compared to 4 7% pre-pandemic In 2022/23, nearly a quarter (22.3%) of all children were persistently absent. Absence levels have remained stuck at unprecedented highs.
The value of good attendance is shown in data from the 2022-2023 academic year For the end of Key Stage 2 it shows that 71% of students who had 99% attendance or above achieved expected standard in reading, writing and maths, compared to only 50% of students with 90% attendance At Key Stage 4 students who missed less than 1% of sessions across Year 10 and 11 had an average P8 score of +0.73, while those who missed 50% of sessions or more had an average score of -2.83 (Burtonshaw & Dorrell 2023 p 6)
The ‘attendance gap’ continues to widen, with students from disadvantaged backgrounds more likely to be both absent and persistently absent than their peers Attendance issues are being felt more acutely
in secondary (9 3% absence rate) than primary schools (6% absence rate) (Burtonshaw & Dorrell 2023 p.6).
In the WAT family of schools we have seen attendance rates similar to that of other schools nationally We’ve seen the disadvantage gap widen in secondary schools and seen similar correlations between attendance and students’ outcomes. Across our primary academies, attendance was 94.6% (the national comparator was 94%) and in our secondary schools it was 90 44% (the national comparator was 90.7%). However, at the school level, our attendance in primaries ranged between 93 and 96% and secondaries 88% and 91 5%
Where do we want to be?
Our aspiration needs to be to return to pre-pandemic attendance levels as a minimum. However, global averages can mask school, year-group and group attendance. Therefore, our aspiration by 2025 is 97:97:97 - an overall attendance of 97% in both primary and secondary, with disadvantaged students and SEND students’ attendance at 97%.
Summary
The research, evidence, government guidance and our school-level experience show that improving attendance has five key levers which form our codified approach:
● Building culture, values and belonging
○ Strategically building a sense of belonging
○ Unlocking personal potential
● Building and maintaining high-quality provision
● Building collective efficacy
● Knowing why absence occurs ‘beyond the code’
○ Excellent use of data
○ Listening to students and their families
○ Families as partners
● Responding to attendance concerns
○ Contextuality
○ Knowing when ‘ill’ is ‘too ill’
○ Supporting mental health and well-being
Lever Focus Rationale
1. Building culture, values and belonging
Strategically creating a sense of belonging
Students who have a sense of belonging are far more likely to have higher attendance. Students with lower attendance are more likely to improve their attendance if school works hard to help them belong, and they find school a warm and inclusive environment
●100% of staff (teaching and professional services) use our agreed belonging cues of smiling, making eye contact and saying ‘hello/good morning’ to EVERY child they meet on the corridor. It’s the WAT way of belongingsmile, make eye contact and greet
●100% of staff use our engagement strategy so that every student knows that their voice is important
Belonging cues
Engagement strategy
2. Building and maintaining high-quality provision
Unlocking personal potential
Students who are involved in wider school life are more likely to attend more regularly Students with lower attendance are likely to attend more often if they have a range of connections in school and take part in a broad variety of personal potential activities
When school is calm and orderly and students are making good progress, they are likely to attend more regularly. This is because school feels safe, calm and purposeful and students feel value in the progress they are making
●100% of students are actively engaging in an extra-curricular opportunity
●All those with concerning attendance have a review of their involvement in personal potential activities
●All schools listen to pupils about what they want to be involved in
●Disruption-free learning in all classrooms
●Calm corridors
●Diligence in following all of the codified approaches
3: Building collective efficacy
4: Knowing ‘beyond the code’ Excellent use of data
Making attendance 'everyone's concern’ means that everyone needs to know their role in improving attendance. Systems and processes can only run well if everyone knows what their part is. When everyone works together to improve attendance the power of the collective means that we can make a difference.
Having accurate, reliable and timely data means that we can deploy resources where they are most needed Families and students are aggrieved when data is not accurate
●100% of staff are clear about their role in attendance
●Schools design and follow a ‘rhythm of the day/month/half-term’ diligently
Rhythm of the day template
Listening to students and families
Only by listening to students and their families can we understand the root causes of weak attendance. By listening carefully, we can get to know the causes behind the symptoms and be better placed to address those causes.
●Half-termly review of attendance
●All schools maintain their attendance dashboard
●100% of registers are accurate
●Everyone gets the data they need, when they need it, in the form they need
●Attendance is reviewed regularly at all levels
●100% of students with worrying attendance discuss this with the right adult and make a plan
●Identify the causes of weak attendance rather then the symptoms
●Action is taken as soon as students/pupils at each of the concerning zones.
Half-term review template
Attendance dashboard
Attendance support plan
Codified approach to meeting families
Families as partners If we work together with families, rather than families feeling that the school is against them, we are more likely to be able to work productively together and improve attendance. While we might need to take punitive measures in some circumstances as a last resort, we need to build strong relationships with families so that, by working together, attendance improves.
5: Responding Responding contextually
Knowing when ‘ill’ is ‘too ill’
Mental health and well-being
●Each family in the red zone has a named school contact who builds a relationship with them
●All communication with families follows the codified approach and is offered virtually as a last resort.
●Families understand why attendance matters
●Run a program of family listening sessions
Codified approach to meeting families
●100% of interventions are bespoke and tackle causes rather then the symptoms of weak attendance
●When illness absence is reported, we will always use the NHS guidance
●Actively encourage part-day attendance
●Seek consent from all families to administer medication
●Have a clear map of the local landscape
●Implement the ‘belonging cues’ across the school
●Review and sharpen the school’s mental health and well-being strategy
Graduated response
NHS guidance
Local Offer Map