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

Haha yes this! Hilariously I didn’t add to my earlier post that DS went into school in September with his new school shoes which had velcro fastenings (he cant do laces as he is ND and has poor motor skills) and was told he would be sent home if he wore them again because they weren’t compliant with the school uniform rules, while a group of disruptive antisocial boys couldn’t possibly be suspended, it would be far too bad for them 🤔

I once went for a job as a secondary school attendance officer. The interview was all about telling parents off about not getting their children in rather than supporting the parents/children to help them get back into school and resolving where possible any issues, like bullying or negative learning experiences that really might have made a difference. Obviously I didn't get the job but I do think some people in education as well as Government think the stick is better than the carrot.

Her dad and sister lived over the boarder so which child should not have been allowed to holiday with him. Anyway, it didn't seem to impact her education much given that she graduated with a 1st class. honours degree. Her sister (who was never taken out of school for a holiday), left at 16 with very poor GCSE results and hasn't worked a day in her life, but carry on judging.

No, that's not true. For a start, in our area, the quality of online learning and support varied MASSIVELY. I know families at other schools, and a number of families with 2 or more children who weren't all at the same school, and the surprise at how school 1 could do a good or even just OK job vs school 2 was a constant source of discussion and frustration.

Also, in the case of our school, I actually don't think it was lack of effort on the part of the individual teachers - it was incompetence at the leadership level that caused the problem. Our head teacher and governors were absolutely paranoid about any kind of online communication in real time and refused to allow it.

No one thinks that all schools and all teachers were bad and/or lazy, but there is no doubt that there were a LOT of schools who did a very very poor job. And for the millions of families who attended those schools, there is a real lack of willingness to support those schools now.

@FrippEnos

Most teachers themselves won't allow them because they don't understand them.

I am not denying that some very poor decisions were made,
But there was no guidance and all schools were left to go their own way,
Meaning that schools had to balance so much more that "just" providing lessons.
On the usual scale some did very well, others did extremely poorly.

But passing an experience or several experiences as the only thing that happened is wrong, and I will continue to keep saying that no matter how much it annoys certain posters.

This thread just reminded me of the emails we used to get about the teachers baking whilst I was struggling to work and supervise 3 children's learning from home.

I went into my old email and searched teacher and baking and found one of those emails. I'm pretty sure there were more emails about the leisurely activities they used to take but I only searched baking.

I'm going to post the whole thing even though I linked to it earlier because some on here apparently really need to hear it:

Some kids are having zoom lessons (parking to one side whether this is the gold standard) and they have the tech to access this

Some kids are having weekly phone contact

Some kids are having differentiated work set remotely

Some kids are having paper work packs hand delivered

Some kids are having a few links sent out at the start of the week

Some kids are getting feedback

Some kids are getting no feedback

Some kids are back in school

Some kids aren’t back in school

Some kids aren’t allowed back in school even though they are in a year group that should be back in school

Some year groups are prioritised

Some year groups have been effectively abandoned

Some kids are vulnerable and not getting the support they need

Some kids have SEN and are not getting the support they need.

It’s terrible that education provision is so patchy. That some pupils are getting far more input and support than others. Parents are right to be furious if theirs is one of the have-nots. They have the right to look at what other kids are getting and be worried that their kid is missing out.

But

This is not unique to lockdown. Do not think, for one second, that things will be fair when kids return to school. Do not think, for one second, that things were fair before lockdown. Underfunding, lack of resources, lack of qualified staff affecting quality of education (despite schools’ and teachers’ best efforts) have been an issue for years.

Some kids had qualified teachers. Some kids had a string of unqualified supply teachers. Some kids were in well-resourced brand new school buildings. Some were in dilapidated pre-fab huts. Some had excellent pastoral support. Some had none. Some had access to opportunities. Some had very little in the way of extras.

And on top of it all, the DfE are a useless bunch who have lied that everything is fine while the system slowly crashes to the ground, desperately propped up by the hard work of the increasingly fewer numbers of dedicated staff who haven’t yet burned out.

This inequality is clearly unacceptable, however it may not have been clear to parents up till now just how bad things are. They may have laboured under the illusion that their children were not affected.

How has it come to this? Gove’s academisation program, making schools into independent private concerns, pitting them against each other instead of encouraging collaboration. League tables. Ofsted ratings. The illusion of parental choice. The mass exodus of teaching staff. Every school has been expected to do its own thing, and now they are doing their own thing, we cannot do what other countries have done and centralise education efforts. Because of lack of funding and central control, the government cannot mandate that schools do anything in a uniform fashion. How can they say children should have video lessons when the tech isn’t there? How can they say that children should make use of centralised lessons from Oak Academy when every school is following their own curriculum?

If you are frustrated regarding the DfE’s announcements of primary kids going back, not going back, Y10 and 12 going back but actually not going back to lessons although some are - they are ALWAYS this incompetent. You’re only now seeing it, but apply that to the last ten years and you might get some idea of the scale of frustration of people who work in education.

If you are pissed off now, you should be. Maintain that anger when schools are back. They need your support because they are struggling in a broken system. Direct it to the right place.

I reiterate my plea to direct anger to the right place.

I once wrote a stinking letter to my son's school about this. I was absolutely sick of letters coming back from them about their obsession with the right pair of socks/shoes/shirt etc. Meanwhile the level of low level disruption in the lessons and the lack of science teachers in the school was of far more concern to me and any normal person (and they did sod all about those things).

I think it all stemmed from a couple of instances where children in schools in a disadvantaged area were given a new school uniform and it increased a sense of pride and community in the school. However, it is not the answer to every structural issue in schools and it seems to have been presented as a panacea. In fact it was most likely introduced by a charismatic, impressive head with leadership skills and a whole suite of ideas that all contributed to school improvements.

@Pelham678 the lack of basic understanding of the issues faced by children like this and fhe it families is beyond dickension.

Our education system needs a whole over haul top to bottom.

During that time I was emailing my children's work daily and made my own learning time table.

I would make up reply emails so that my children would feel accountable, as I wasn't getting any reply emails. I had to make them feel that their work was being monitored.

This is a huge issue, I am working with a pupil at the moment, on the waiting list for CAMHS support but also ASD assessment, could be some years before that is forthcoming, however in the meantime they keep getting put in 'isolation' because they need to wear a hoody over their head, its their comfort blanket, it makes it possible to cope (for a bit)

But not, not allowed, not exceptions made, even with the EHCP, its not allowed because you cant breach uninform policy.

So what do you think happens, well they dont turn up for school most days

I hear that a lot, too. The most galling person to say it was a TA, justifying her own children's random days off by pointing at teachers who were striking for more money for both themselves and their schools!

Could a system be created where people that want to learn in a safe and productive environment, go to x schools and everyone that does not want to attend formal education , is eg apprenticeship etc with different companies ?

What makes you think companies either want these kids who don't want to learn, or who would have the resources to deal with them? Particularly under 16s where what you can ask kids to do is rightly limited.

@FrippEnos

It was the unions that said don't teach. Some heads followed union advice, others didn't and put children first and taught

I am working with a pupil at the moment, on the waiting list for CAMHS support but also ASD assessment, could be some years before that is forthcoming

It's worth remembering that in some parts of the country an ASD assessment will never be forthcoming because the NHS are rejecting referrals from everyone except those whose lives have completely broken down as a result.

I’ve worked in school attendance and most parents really want their kids in school but there is a growing band who don’t give a shit and just can’t be bothered to parent.

Those parents who agree that the parent-school contract has broken down and they will therefore be taking their kids out of school as and when they like - what do you think can be done to fix this?

Well you can only guide people so much, but its not fair for other students that want to learn to have their education disrupted, or the teacher not teaching the lesson.

During that time I was emailing my children's work daily and made my own learning time table.

I wasn't, because I lost my teaching job and income due to covid. Dh set up, and was in charge of monitoring, full online provision for his school in time for day 1 of the first lockdown, and in between was driving around the countryside delivering laptops to students who didn't have enough tech at home.

What the article also doesn't address is internal truancy which has also massively increased since covid. Kids who do come to school are just refusing to attend lessons once there, or picking and choosing which lessons to attend.

I took my children out of school during lockdown and started home schooling tjem

i never sent them back and academically are doing much much better than they were in school. They’re learning much much more but it’s incredibly hard. It takes real real organisations and development from the parent. I do way more now than I did when my kids were at school.

reading this I 100% know that I made the right decision

Those parents who agree that the parent-school contract has broken down and they will therefore be taking their kids out of school as and when they like - what do you think can be done to fix this?

Who knows? Some parents who are angry about lockdowns and strikes seem to think they are somehow 'sticking it to' schools by no longer sending their kids in when they don't feel like it. But the only ones who lose out in the long run are the kids.