Truancy

Front matter

Truancy

Truancy: Short and Long-term Solutions is a practical and accessible guide to dealing with the problem of truancy and non-attendance. It is the first book on the issue to actively focus on solutions to the problem, rather than just the causes.

The book is full of practical examples of the latest ways in which schools, teachers, education welfare officers and LEAs try to overcome their attendance difficulties. The author identifies 120 short-term solutions as well as several long-term strategic approaches. He also considers issues such as parental-condoned absenteeism, alternative curriculum schemes and mentoring, while the final chapter presents some strategic issues which policy makers and politicians need to overcome.

Contents

List of figures Acknowledgements

Foreword: About this book

The challenge af truancy and school absenteeism Typical schools

Chapter 2

This chapter will present two brief case studies of typical approaches used by secondary schools in order to combat absenteeism and truancy. The case studies are based on two of those schools involved with the author during session 2000 to 2001. The first case study focuses on a school in South Wales which has had serious attendance problems for over twenty-five years. Case study B is based on a large community school in south-west England which is becoming increasingly worried about its attendance profile as another Ofsted inspection looms.

Both case studies illustrate that many schools are trying really hard to improve their attendance rates. Often, however, they do not have the expertise to know how best to do so really effectively. Many schools are caught up in the daily reality of ‘fire fighting’ approaches because of the constant bombardment of new initiatives by government and LEAs to schools on so many different fronts. Typically, therefore, attendance is often raised up the agenda in a lot of schools, the nearer the timescale is towards its next inspection. In fact, it is a fairly well-known syndrome for schools to attempt or to actually improve their attendance rates close to an inspection only for them to deteriorate again shortly afterwards. As Ofsted have to include a section in their final report on schools with less than 90 per cent actual daily attendance, this tends to focus the minds of headteachers and their staff. Too many schools leave attendance issues too far down their agenda until it is too late.

Between Chapters 3 and 6 the text considers short-term solutions. From Chapter 7 onwards longer-term strategies are presented. Ideally, schools should utilise best practice from both approaches. Whilst the evidence. shows that the two case study schools are doing their very best to improve attendance — and should be commended for doing so — they are all a long way from achieving ideal solutions. Readers should note that medium-term solutions as manifest by whole-school approaches have been considered in Chapters 9 and 10 of Truancy and Schools (Reid, 1999) and so have been excluded from this text.

Case Study A - Honeywell School

The author led a staff development event for all senior staff of 147 schools within a large LEA in September 2000. Within weeks of the event, one of the LEA’s schools was placed in ‘special measures’ for a second time with poor school attendance the key reason given for Estyn’s (the Welsh Ofsted) action.

Typical schools 2l

Subsequently, the LEA and the headteacher and senior staff at Honeywell School thought it was almost inevitable that their school would follow suit. Their scepticism was partly borne of the realisation that their attendance rates were as bad, if not worse, than their peer school nearby which had already been put into special measures. In fact, the first school was located approximately three miles away and had a similar history to their own. The scepticism also developed because of a feeling amongst the staff that no matter what they tried and however hard they endeavoured to turn the situation around, little difference had been made to their overall attendance statistics. In this respect, the appointment of a comparatively new headteacher, whose experience was mainly obtained in another school within the LEA, had also made little difference. In fact, in private, the headteacher was prepared to admit that he was at his weakest on attendance issues as:

(a) he had never received any formal training on the subject;

(b) it was not his own favourite issue;

(c) he had come from a school which had a similar major problem of absenteeism amongst pupils albeit, he felt, for entirely different reasons;

(d) he had delegated responsibility for attendance matters to one of his deputies.

The staff in Honeywell School recognised that attendance was one of their main flaws, if not their weakest one, prior to their second major external inspection. The Estyn inspection took place in November 2000. The author’s brief was to help and advise the school in preparation for their inspection to ensure that the school was advising Estyn that it was doing everything possible to overcome its attendance difficulties.

Honeywell School is located in South Wales on the outskirts of a major city. It currently caters for 780 pupils and, since its inception in 1976, has had major attendance problems. Ten years ago, the school had 1,670 pupils on roll but numbers have steadily been declining. In 1999, 18 per cent of its intake achieved five or more A to C GCSE examination passes; a reduction of 2 per cent on the previous year. Twenty-four per cent — of the pupils are either statemented or classified as having other forms of special educational needs.

Honeywell School services a number of deprived residential areas, has a majority of its pupils from low socio-economic backgrounds and has a high proportion of its pupils on free school meals. A significant number of parents in the catchment area have exercised their rights by sending their offspring to other higher achieving schools.

In 1995, the school had an attendance rate of less than 80 per cent. The LEA recognised that Honeywell (and five other secondary schools in the area) needed to address this problem and that more could be achieved if schools worked together rather than in isolation. The LEA bid for Gest funding to tackle the problem. They then set up a working group made up of representatives from each of the schools and led by the charity ‘Cities in Schools’ (recently renamed ‘Include’). Four years later, despite much hard work on the part of staff, the overall position had changed very little.

Organisation of the working group

As a result of a forthcoming inspection, the school established its own working party in 1999 to look at attendance and to present a plan on how to raise pupils’ attendance levels.

22 Typical schools The working party decided that their function should be two-fold:

1 to seek out and provide qualified and experienced experts to lead training days; 2 to provide a means of sharing good practice amongst themselves and with other schools who have worked their way through their problems.

In this way, the working group aimed to provide each part of the school with support and information to aid them in their efforts to improve their attendance rate. The school has been provided with three extra staff to facilitate their special and educational needs priority status. At the start of the financial year 2000/1, the school was in the ‘red’ to a sum of approximately £100,000. A new headteacher was appointed at the start of the 1999/2000 session.

The first task of the working party was to identify the causes of poor attendance in the school. This was done by pooling experiences and expertise. The main areas identified by the working party were: curriculum issues; bullying; basic skills; home-school relations; effective monitoring; rewarding good attendance.

The school’s situation

In session 1995/6, the overall attendance rate was 77.8 per cent. In 1996/7, the attendance rate increased by 3.5 per cent to 81.3 per cent. In 1997/8, it again increased by 1.4 per cent to 82.7 per cent. In 1998/9, it decreased by 0.8 per cent to 81.99 per cent. In 1999/2000, it increased by 0.91 per cent to 82.9 per cent. The school’s own target is to increase its attendance rate by 1.5 per cent to 2 per cent each year over the following three years.

The whole school attendance figures suggest that attendance in the spring term is often lower than the autumn and summer terms. More revealing however, are the data on attendance when analysed by year group. For example, in session 1995/6, the overall attendance of year 7 was 83 per cent. For year 11, it was 72.9 per cent. In 1996/7, there was a 14.7 per cent difference in the attendance rates of year 7 and year 11 pupils (86.9 per cent compared with 72.2 per cent). In the same year, there was a difference of 8.5 per cent between the attendance levels of year 10 and year 11 pupils. After a great deal of hard work, the school managed to raise the attendance of year 7 pupils in 1998/9 to 89.93 per cent, their highest ever level. However, for year 11 pupils, attendance remained poor at 74.42 per cent, which suggests that the internal procedures were being less effective for the older age pupils. In session 1999/2000, years 7 and 8 pupils recorded 86.33 and 88.15 per cent attendance respectively. For year 10, the attendance level was down to 78.98 per cent. The evidence suggested that there was an increasing attendance problem as the pupils became older and moved up the school. This was true for both girls and boys. These findings, which are commonplace in many secondary schools, imply that factors like the curriculum, teacher—pupil relationships and peer pressure are having a greater and more negative effect on pupils in years 10 and 11 than lower down within secondary schools.

There was a particular problem at the end of the winter term and after the summer examinations. Casual non-attendance accounted for the vast majority of absences. Attendance was also worse amongst the lower ability pupils. This information was obtained from a study of the registers and the results of a school-based questionnaire conducted with the pupils. The attitude amongst many staff at the start of the project was that they should concentrate upon those pupils who were in the classroom and wished to learn rather than upon the absentees. Some staff even thought their own teaching and learning situation was helped by the absence of some pupils.

Behaviour is another major concern of the staff. Some pupils do not behave well during the transitions between lessons, and individual incidents between staff and students are the norm. Some staff also experience difficulty in controlling pupils during their lessons. The author found that the behaviour of the pupils in the corridors between classes and during breaks to be amongst the worst he had witnessed during his career. Some pupils appeared to be playing a game whereby they kept bumping into members of staff as they passed alongside them. There was either a lot of clumsiness around or some of the pupils’ actions were deliberate.

The curriculum

The first tasks were:

1 to raise staff awareness of the issues; and, 2 to persuade them to view absenteeism as a problem to be tackled rather than a situation to be ignored.

It was important that right from the beginning all staff were involved in trying to rectify the situation. The initiative was viewed as a ‘whole school’ problem rather than as a ‘pastoral’ problem. At the Curricular Heads meeting, the current attendance figures were produced and discussed. It was noted that the difficulties caused to teachers in mixed ability situations were much worse than in set classes. A wide-ranging discussion led to an acceptance of the need to try to rectify the situation. The Curricular Heads also agreed to co-operate with the Inset that the working group would provide. It was agreed that the KS4 curriculum needed to be more flexible and relevant especially for those pupils who were unable or unwilling to access GCSEs.

The working party identified two groups of pupils who were not catered for adequately:

1 Those pupils who were statemented MLD or EBD. For these, a developed ‘Alternative Curriculum’ was developed. A two-year course based on the core subjects Youth Award and the Duke of Edinburgh Award was introduced. This course has now been running for almost four years and the children who have completed the work have shown an attendance rate of 85-90 per cent over the two years and all have left school with some qualifications at COEA, GCSE, Youth Award or Duke of Edinburgh level. In the last eighteen months, a greater emphasis has been placed on improving the pupils’ key skills to allow them to access further education.

2 Those pupils whose attitude to schooling was becoming or had become extremely negative leading them to miss school on a regular basis. Some of these pupils have also benefited from the school’s latest initiatives.

Pupils with the worst attendance records were offered the opportunity to attend a ‘Bridge Course’ organised by Cities in Schools and paid for partly by the LEA and partly by the school. The number of places was strictly limited and became even more so over a period of time. Each group of ten, made up of pupils from two or more schools, was supported by a youth worker employed by Cities in Schools. The pupils undertook two days’ work experience each week, organised and monitored by the youth worker, two days in an FE college and one day’s personal activities and support including individual counselling and off-site activities.

This was a very successful course. Pupils attained average attendance rates of 85—90 per cent over the one-year. They all completed qualifications in key skills and many went on to attend the local FE college post-16 to follow vocational courses. Unfortunately, it proved to be a very expensive course and the LEA were unable to continue to fund the scheme over a sustained period. They have since replaced it with a less supervised and intensive programme. It has, therefore, been a less successful ‘Access course’ for year 10 and 11 pupils to participate.

Another problem is that this strategy could only benefit a very small number of pupils; a maximum of five year 11 pupils per academic session. The school, therefore, needed to widen the range of courses it offered at KS4 in order to try harder to accommodate a pupil’s first choice. The school has done this by changing the way it organises the KS4 timetable and by offering GNVQ courses in ‘Built Environment’, ‘Health and Social Care’ and ‘Business Studies’. The ‘Built Environment’ programme especially has succeeded in engaging pupils who had expressed a view that school had very little to offer that they considered valuable. Again, this has proved an expensive course to run. The school is hoping to offset the cost to some extent by co-operating with the college to provide a post-16 course in this field. If the college is successful, it will also help the pupils with progression.

Bullying

Bullying is a very real fear for a great many year 7 pupils and is closely linked to absence. The school recognised the need to provide bullied pupils with every assistance in overcoming their justified fears. After discussion with the pastoral team, it was felt that the best way forward was to work to increase the confidence of pupils in themselves and in the school. They needed to be convinced that they were equipped to deal with most of the problems that would come their way. Also, if they met a threatening situation they could not deal with, there would always be somebody to listen, understand and to take the appropriate action.

A head of year had carried out a questionnaire survey amongst the pupils which had indicated there was confusion over what constituted bullying, what would happen if they reported bullying, or, in fact to whom they should report it. Although pupils reported some evidence of physical bullying, they were particularly concerned about how to treat cases of verbal abuse and verbal bullying. A system of peer counselling was introduced. With the support of the year tutor, year 10 pupils were approached during the summer term. It was put to them that they probably understood the fears of the younger pupils better having previously experienced the same problems. Volunteers to act as peer counsellors during the next academic year were sought. They were asked to listen to the problems experienced by the younger pupils and to provide appropriate guidance. To help them, they were trained by a qualified counsellor so that they would feel secure in this work. They would also be supported by a member of the SMT and their year tutor and received regular debriefings to ensure that they were keeping to their brief. Counsellors and pupils alike were advised on the key issues and appropriate responses towards verbal bullying.

The school is presently in its fourth year of running peer counsellors’ groups. The training for the first two groups was initially provided by Cities in Schools. Subsequently, it was decided that it would be more cost-effective to train a member of staff from each school in order to provide the appropriate Inset. The scheme has been developed to include the concept of year 7 buddies so that each new pupil has at least two older pupils with whom they can immediately identify.

The confusion over what constitutes bullying and how to cope with the pressures of a new school for year 7 pupils are addressed in an ‘Anti-Bullying Day’ which is run with the help of the head of English and Drama and the year 11 Drama Group. The day takes place early in September. It involves the form tutor in a central role to reinforce the message that these are the adults in the school most closely connected to the care and development of each individual pupil. A review of the school’s Anti-Bullying Policy has recently been undertaken in order to incorporate all these changes and to flag up to the staff that this is an issue that can never be ignored.

The staff have also undertaken a full training day on bullying. A questionnaire from Sheffield University for use with year 8 pupils was obtained. The next stage is to find a way of collecting information from parents on their views on bullying in the school (without giving the impression that the school has a problem).

Basic skills

If pupils cannot access the curriculum they become disenchanted and lose the desire to progress. As a result, they begin to look for reasons riot to attend school or they truant. As a school, the staff needed to reverse this trend and then prevent it from happening in the first place. The school therefore, organised several training days on literacy. Experts from all over the country were brought in to help to formulate the school’s literacy policies. All members of staff attended these training days and a great deal of expertise was gained. To avoid this being seen as purely a problem for the English department, staff from outside the department were involved. As a result, the heads of English, Maths and Science started working together on the issue and have since delivered two training sessions to the staff of the school as part of the school’s literacy programme. The school’s English and Mathematics departments have also gained funding from ‘The Prince’s Trust’ to improve their provision for study skills support.

Home-=school relations

The school has spent a great deal of time looking at all aspects of the way it communicates and relates to the parents of their pupils. The main hurdle it has faced in all the work it has done since 1995 has been the unwillingness of a large minority of parents to accept that children who fail to attend school on a regular basis cannot hope to achieve their full potential. Unfortunately, a significant number of parents condone their children’s non-attendance.

Therefore, a home-school agreement which is signed by all parents before their children start at the school was introduced. This agreement covers all aspects of the work carried out by the school and outlines what is expected from all parties, pupils—parents and the school. The wording was agreed after consultation between the headteacher and other members of the school staff. Again, if the process was to be repeated, an input from parents and pupils would be sought to make the agreement even more relevant to the needs of all parties.

A school-based analysis of recent correspondence revealed that the majority of letters to parents were sent either about bad behaviour or a child’s lack of progress. Thus, the school decided to increase the number of positive forms of communication between the home and the school. The school now uses ‘Praise Cards’ to inform parents when their child has done well. Parents are also informed of any rewards their child has received. Regular mail shots to increase the amount of information the parents receive on the school are sent.

The school has worked with the year tutors to examine the way they correspond with individual parents and to examine how they conduct formal interviews with parents. The school policy revolves around the basic premise that everyone is working together to support and help the child. The school attempts to avoid any suggestion of blame-or inadequacy on the part of the parents. This has not always been easy to achieve as some parents do come into school in a confrontational mood. Strategies for defusing such situations have now been developed.

The school’s secretarial staff have also received training on how best to greet parents either on the phone or in person. It is equally important that these staff members convey the correct impression to visitors.

The main forum for contact between teachers and parents is the Annual Parents’ Evenings. The school has experimented with different formats for these evenings and recently introduced some significant changes following feedback from a questionnaire about the organisation of parents’ evenings given fo all parents. Subsequently, the Year 7 Parents’ Evening was brought forward to November when parents were invited into school to talk to their child’s form tutor. The meetings took place in form rooms so that parents could see a part of their child’s school life. These meetings proved very successful and the school’s evaluation showed very positive feedback from parents and form tutors alike.

The school has subsequently developed this concept into a series of ‘Year 7 Review Days’ which takes place during November and in July. The school has taken this step to incorporate the idea of meeting individual pupil targets and action plans.

Parents’ Evenings for the rest of the school are run on more traditional lines. The school is continually looking for ways to encourage more of the parents to attend, especially those from low socio-economic backgrounds. The next stage is to provide further training for all teachers on how to make the most of their parental interaction.

Effective monitoring

Being able to keep an accurate register of a form’s and individual pupil’s attendance is a skill expected of all teachers. Yet, most trainee teachers are never given any guidance on this aspect before they start teaching. The school has written its own comprehensive guide on the role of the form tutor which is given to all staff. This includes clear guidelines on how to ensure that a register is accurate. It also emphasises how to convey the importance of every absence being covered either by a note or telephone call from parents.

The school has introduced a policy of ‘first day response’. This was initially conducted by a member of the SMT, year tutors and form tutors. However, funding has recently been found to pay for extra clerical staff to carry out this function. As a result, the number of unauthorised absences has decreased, although, worryingly, parental condonement of non-attendance is increasing.

The SMT have examined the different ways of registering attendance electronically. The school considers the very expensive ‘EARS’ system would be ideal but the cost is beyond their means. The school has, therefore, decided to introduce the Sims attendance module. The system was piloted in 1999/2000 with year 8 and the whole school started to use it in May 2000.

One of the inherent problems of this system is how to deal with poor punctuality. The school has two strategies to deal with this issue. First, it provides pupils with an easy way of ‘getting their mark’ when they are late for school. Second, it monitors lateness as closely as attendance and uses either punishments or support whenever necessary.

The Sims system does not monitor specific lesson truancy. Therefore, the SMT have introduced a regular routine of ‘spot checks’ carried out by themselves or one of the year tutors. When they have specific concerns over a particular pupil’s attendance in their lesson, staff are also encouraged to consult the year tutor. All year tutors now have access to the Sims system and so checking on pupil attendance is a lot easier.

The school has given considerable thought to the ways in which long-term absentees can be re-integrated back into school. By working with the school’s counsellor and EWO, the school has experimented with bringing a small group of such pupils back together to allow them to support one another through the process. Unfortunately, the success rate of the group was not good when compared with the time given to the work by the counsellor and the EWO.

Rewarding good attendance

Developing the concept of rewarding good attendance within the school proved controversial. Some staff felt that the school should not reward pupils for doing ‘what they should do’. All staff however, already accepted the need to reward pupils for academic progress and positive behaviour. The SMT counterbalanced this view by carrying out an exercise on the school’s existing reward system and incorporated rewards for good and improved attendance into the process. Thus, the staff were gradually able to accept the positive benefits upon attendance of utilising a reward process. The school also recognises pupils’ achievements by publicising the name of every student who has achieved 100 per cent attendance each half term. Two notice boards within the school are used for attendance issues. On these boards, the names of pupils showing who has done well in any area of school life are published for anyone to see. This includes outstanding attendance.

As part of the SMT review of the school’s reward system, pupils were asked to complete a questionnaire on their reaction to different types of rewards. At first, they were very concerned about the idea of being singled out in this specific way. They did feel however, that if their name was one of a group amongst other pupils they could cope better.

The school now awards certificates for good or improved attendance. These are given out in assembly by the headteacher. At the end of the year, any pupil with 100 per cent attendance is given a cash prize.

The school has discussed the possibility of running a lottery so that any pupil who gains 100 per cent attendance for a half term wins a ticket to the lottery which is drawn at the end of the year. The school started this scheme in session 2001/2.

All of the above policies still have room for development and improvement. The school is considering the advisability of asking one of the school’s governors to become directly involved in the work it does on attendance. The school is currently arranging for some of its pupils’ parents to meet with a governor to talk over the importance of a good attendance record.

Parental attitudes remain the school’s biggest hurdle. The school has to find more ways of getting the message across that school matters and that good performance is directly related to achieving positive academic outcomes.

Attendance is a permanent topic on the agenda on the senior pastoral staff meetings. The school also ensures that somebody from the school attends any relevant Inset or conference on the issue. Unfortunately, the LEA’s working group on attendance no longer meets so it does not now have a forum to help it in this work.

Despite all these initiatives, the school’s attendance has improved little. Therefore, the staff are asking themselves, what more can they do? They do not wish to be put in special measures but they were fearful that this might well happen.

In the event, after the inspection, the school’s attendance figures were ‘deemed unsatisfactory’ by Estyn. However, ‘in recognition of the progress’ which the school has made, its efforts on attendance were judged by Estyn to be ‘part of the school’s overall drive to improve standards’. Honeywell had managed to escape being put into special measures so the staff now feel that their efforts have had a belated impact.

After visiting the school and holding discussions with a range of key staff and after inspecting Honeywell’s internal documents, the author gave the school the following advice:

(a) To rewrite and update the school’s policy document on attendance. This was weak and out-of-date. Although much good work was taking place it was not manifest by the school’s policy document. After the old document had been reviewed and rewritten Estyn expressed pleasant surprise.

(b) To relate and integrate the school’s policy documents on attendance, behaviour and bullying.

(c) To provide Estyn with individual examples of good practice in work with pupils in attendance cases.

(d) To ensure all members of the special needs unit and learning mentors were conversant with all attendance and behavioural issues and had been appropriately trained.

(e) To select three new short-term strategies from the lists provided in Chapters 3 to 6.

(f) To consider introducing a longer-term strategy as indicated in Chapters 7 and 8.

(g) To start involving parents more in school-based activities within the school either as helpers or as learners within classrooms.