Parents to be asked to solve school attendance crisis

[noblegiraffe]

There is an article in the Times about the current school attendance crisis. It cannot be overstated how awful the attendance crisis is. Pupils, particularly disadvantaged pupils, are staying away from school in much larger numbers, and for more days than before covid.

It says that lockdowns broke the contract between parents and schools which said that school attendance was compulsory.

It blames parents for keeping their children home when they have a minor illness or are slightly anxious about school.

It quotes Bridget Phillipson, Shadow Education Secretary as saying "If I were secretary of state, I’d be sending a very clear message to parents that every day at school matters, and that irresponsible parents who don’t care about sending their kids to school are harming other kids’ life chances, not just their own"

(Whereas current Education Secretary Gillian) "Keegan will expand a programme that gives children skipping school an attendance mentor who could drive or walk youngsters from their home to school in the morning or negotiate with head teachers on their behalf. She said: “Persistent absence is a hangover from the pandemic affecting schools around the world. Schools and the government cannot do this alone.

“Families play a big part in attendance and parents have a legal duty to make sure their children are at school. I know it can be hard to get children out of the door, especially when they are feeling a bit anxious or have a mild cough or cold, so we must rebuild the social contract between parents and schools and make sure everyone plays their part.”

While lockdowns are brought up, what is not mentioned is the utter state schools were in between lockdowns and after lockdowns. Children were being supervised in halls rather than being taught due to lack of teachers who were ill (and this is still happening now due to inability to recruit). Lack of teachers meaning that kids get endless cover which can be largely a waste of time. Children who are anxious about attending school are expected to get on with it while teachers who are unable to cope with the poor behaviour of students are signed off with stress. The experience of children in schools during and since covid can be extraordinarily shit.

Attendance is much lower in pupils from disadvantaged backgrounds. Child poverty is not mentioned - I was reading about a child who couldn't attend school because her mother needed to use the one pair of shoes they shared. Other children are needed to look after younger siblings while parents work because they can't afford childcare. How will this be solved by sending a car around?

But we also know that schools in disadvantaged areas are more likely to struggle to hire staff. What is the point in a child attending school when they don't have teachers? How will Keegan and Phillipson argue that one?

This bit is the most worrying:

"A Labour government, Phillipson said, would place more emphasis on absenteeism as part of the Ofsted inspection framework, with schools compelled to produce an annual report on attendance, off-rolling (removing a pupil without using a permanent exclusion) and safeguarding. Schools are required to submit weekly attendance records to the Department for Education but absenteeism does not have its own Ofsted criteria, instead falling under a broader category of “behaviour and attitudes”.
These reports would affect the Ofsted rating given to schools, which would also take into account the progress they have made in shrinking the attainment gap between disadvantaged pupils and their more affluent peers"

Linking an Ofsted grading to attendance will just doom schools in disadvantaged areas to low Ofsted grades at a time when Ofsted had just started to recognise that grading a school based on disadvantage was a bad idea.

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/1d7eb40d-c4c4-4dcc-85ea-ad6f62c65b9c?shareToken=6c4b865c0c1b8626f2761a5ad733b608

I'm sorry but I have to say there is an awful lot of soft parenting going on here. Kids need structure and SEN kids need it more! Stop making excuses parents, and get your children to engage whilst awaiting diagnosis etc.. These children are losing years of their educational lives and you will all really regret this in the long term. Take your kid to school and sit with them in class if need be. You had the child - take the responsibility.

Oh don't be ridiculous.

My DD missed a whole year in the pandemic with MH issues. Nothing to do with soft parenting or lack of structure. More to do with various ACEs coming home to roost simultaneously with pandemic and extra pressure of GCSEs meaning her 'just about coping' tipped into total collapse.

Spoken by someone who has no idea what they are talking about!

To be fair I will say that most secondary schools now are very overcrowded, busy loud places. I work in a school of ~1500 students + over 150 staff, the buildings are very much at max capacity and you can tell. Even large office buildings and labs I've worked in don't feel this busy.

In work, you don't have to be in a room with 33 other people that was designed for maybe 28. You don't (usually) have to deal with another person having violent outbursts or shouting out offensive language. You can normally get up and take a break as you wish etc. You don't have to study subjects you're absolutely rubbish at, because you can pick a job you're reasonably good at!

It's probably not true of all school refusing children, but I think a good percentage of them probably could manage some kind of job in a less overcrowded/stressful/more predictable environment.

I also teach a sixth form student who started school refusing in Y8 due to anxiety. She was home schooled and got support for her anxiety and she now manages sixth form "full time" although she still avoids certain areas of the school and obviously has days when she has frees in the afternoon so can go home etc. She's planning to go on to uni, and I think there's a good chance she'll continue to cope at uni too. School refusing isn't always the end of the line.

I am working in a school and the level of abuse that is levelled at us is staggering! I have seen many colleagues upset and drained at yet another abusive email/phone call from a parent. It’s a really difficult time to work in education - hence the influx of vacancies that can not be filled.

There is no respect for teachers anymore which filters through the children and their attitudes. There won’t be any teachers left as they are leaving in droves so there won’t be anyone left to moan at.

Abusive communication is never acceptable under any circumstances. However as these phone calls and emails are so frequent the school/your colleagues need to look at why this is happening.
Parents don't fire off angry emails if their child is happy and supported at school.

I was a teacher during Covid and I left the profession this summer. It really annoys me when people assume ALL schools did nothing over lockdown. My school (which has its fair share of problems!) spent the weeks in the run up to lockdown preparing paper resources that could be sent home/printed/collected as a large amount of our intake had no device at home. This was then dropped back into school and collected by teachers to mark and feedback on. As a form tutor I called every single tutee weekly/emailed parents if I got no response and always chased it up. The actual weeks of lockdown 1 were spent going in on a rota to be with the vulnerable children in school, whilst creating work that could be done remotely (before teaching online was being done) to be collected/ dropped off at homes, as well as delivering food parcels to students and their families. From lockdown 2, we taught our full timetables online (whilst still providing hard copies for those with no devices- who also had the option to come into school), marked and fed back on work and continued to be in contact with our families. Once we returned to fully face to face teaching, we were working in bubbles, traipsing across the entire (large) school site to teach In 6 different classrooms every day, not allowed to “socialise” with other staff in the staff room (despite the parties going on at No. 10) and continued so for a full year! At no point did “schools” decide to close- they were told to by the government. The unions petitioned for safe working conditions for their members. I appreciate the difficulty of trying to supervise home learning and work full time, but working in an office with adults and working in a classroom with 36 children are vastly different environments and can’t be compared in terms of safety.

I have no idea who these “teachers” are who were out paddle boarding and having a lark during lockdowns, because everyone I know was working bloody hard.

covid has A LOT to answer for in terms of delayed development etc, but attendance has always been an issue and until the NHS is fixed and has the capacity to support on mental health issues and the SEND support exists (and schools are adequately funded, therefore allowing adequate staffing), nothing will change. Schools and parents need to work together to demand better for our children.

Ousted gratings have been affected by absenteeism for years. Another reason there’s a teacher shortage.

The kids doing their GCSEs were in yr 7 when the first lockdowns happened.
I've heard teachers say that this cohort have found it quite difficult to settle in school.
Im not sure how prevalent this is but I'd be interested in opinions.

What an ignorant comment.
Many of us have done just this. Place still failed. Child still became suicidal.
He needed a special school place not to be forced into mainstream and have his
mum sit with him for 4 years.
Now I have a child with the same send as his had before but now I’ve lost my career and my son is irreparably damaged.
Slow hand clap nursie.

With covid my relationship ended in divorce so doubly affected the kids especially my DD who has been hospitalised repeatedly with anorexia and anxiety due to relationship breakdowns with her father. Has e attended school for a year. It’s a huge struggle to get back into school with support. Pointless blaming me or fining me as nothing will change. Unless her father gets involved and she gets support facing going into school I don’t see how I can get her to attend. Except physically dragging her kicking and screaming

And this is a very clear example of the breakdown between parents and schools. Schools do provide for and value children as individuals- the fact you don’t know this is probably due to the fact you and your child are hardly there. The more you keep them off, the worse it will get and wider the gaps will be in your child’s learning. As long as you point the blaming finger at the schools though, then everything is fine 🙄
Why don’t you ask the school if you can go in and try to support your child whilst they’re there?

My year 10 has battled terrible anxiety since joining secondary school in 2020, the first year of Covid when we told kids they were superspreaders of a virus that would kill their grandparents. She now has debilitating OCD, has fought going to school every day for 4 years because it’s noisy, boisterous, scary, there’s talk of knives, drugs and sex crimes amongst the kids that she finds terrifying. The bathrooms are used as places for kids to hang out and vape. It’s a hugely intimidating environment. Teaching has become crowd control so good kids are taken down with the rule breakers. In November she had a complete breakdown and hasn’t been to school since. It’s the cause of enormous stress to the entire family but listening to your child say they can’t go on living because they can’t cope with school anymore means we had no choice but to keep her home.

No school is going to allow random parents to sit in lessons! Most classrooms hardly have space for the staff and pupils for a start let alone parents.

If a child was going into school every day scared to go home school would rightly raise alarm bells.

but if a child is going home every day scared to go into school parents are expected to just send them into school anyway.

Utter bulls**t! I’ve done it! And they were amazing about it.

Then as the parent find out why?

@gingerninja · if your DD were allowed to join an online school do you think she would engage? I just do not understand why this is not an option for children, especially in key exam years like YR10 and 11. Surely it would not be much more expensive than funding her real school? It seems with the right will this could be implemented for many.

How much experience do you have with a child with severe anxiety?

However as these phone calls and emails are so frequent the school/your colleagues need to look at why this is happening.Parents don't fire off angry emails if their child is happy and supported at school.

Parents quite often fire off angry emails because they don't like it when their child is sanctioned for bad behaviour. Maybe the parents need to look at why the bad behaviour is happening.

Agreed! A teacher friend of mine once joked with a parent ‘I won’t believe what they say about home if you take what they say about school with a pinch of salt’. Hilarious!

Please realise how lucky you are to have NT children. I didn't with my first three. It's gutting to put 3 hours of gruelling work in every morning to get a phonecall 45 minutes into the day to ask if you could possibly collect your child because school can't cope. Despite saying they can cope over and over and over again. In dozens of meetings a month.
It's gutting when your 6 year old poses a threat to his own life at school.
It's gutting to have to give up your job to be constantly on call.
It's not bad parenting, I have 3 children with perfect attendance.
If only shoving them in the door and leaving worked. If only anything worked.
Don't judge what you can't possibly understand.

Teachers then could use their expertise, creativity and to revitalise the curriculum and do what they do best - engage children in learning, whatever the subject matter may be.

Teachers do this. Unfortunately, however much effort they put into designing and delivering an engaging curriculum, lots of kids still behave badly and aren't interested.

Spoken like someone that doesn't have a clue.