If you work in education, what do you think is causing the current attendance issues?

[NeedAnUpgrade]

I’ve read quite a lot on this recently. DD1 is 10, she’s always been reluctant to go to school. She had a spate of UTIs, stomach aches, headaches etc. She’s had a bit of time off sick but we only triggered the attendance letter recently as it went below a certain threshold. DH and I have always done our best to get her into school, being reassured that she’s ‘been fine all day’ by her teachers. It all came to a head this year (yr 5) after a complete meltdown, several anxiety attacks and refusal to leave the house. She’s now on a reduced timetable at school and on the waiting list for an ASD assessment.
Academically she’s ahead but just can’t seem to cope with the school environment.

I’m just wondering what those who work in education think the issues are. Am I just a terrible parent? Although I’m not sure what else I could do. I suspect a complete lack of funding in education has had the biggest impact on schools and students. Especially those with SEN.

Education is an absolute bin fire . Not enough funding especially for SEND, not enough MH support, academies, teachers leaving in droves, over crammed curriculum, ridiculous targets that benefit no one, Ofsted, behaviour is off the wall, aggressive parents who refuse to accept their little cherub is causing havoc (for a multitude of reasons) and won’t work with us to support them and turn it all around. I’m a TA and many of us are ready to leave. We are so letting this generation down.

I can’t believe people still believe this sort of claptrap about resilience.

It’s long been proven by research that resilience isn’t built by pushing through hard times but by recovering from them!

See https://hbr.org/2016/06/resilience-is-about-how-you-recharge-not-how-you-endure

Very old fashioned idea.

Mental health issues following covid

An archaic education system that hasn't evolved to suit today's needs

Little hittler slt that prioritise imposing ridiculous rules over education

Such an uneducated ignorant response

I have been a teacher in primary for 7 years. Definitely covid lockdowns have changed pur culture around attendance to a school/ work place. As a previous poster said, attendance is now viewed as optional. Schools are trying super hard to change this but it is very hard to reverse a cultural shift!!

Ha ha

A very informed response. I can assure you. If you walked a week in my shoes you would see it.

I actually saw the figures for a major LA this week, SEND is not the major reason behind non attendance- despite the view on here. 30% of severe absentees (so pupils with less than 50% attendance) had SEN), So 70% of pupils not attending school for at least 50% of the time do not have any identified SEND.

If we go to the home each day and pick up the children (which means getting them out of bed, dressing them , driving them to the school in the minibus , giving them breakfast ) then the children attend school. The government do not fund schools to do this.

@CarAccident
But a huge % of ND kids won't be diagnosed due to CAMHS waiting lists of 3 years +
I know several glaringly obvious kids with SEN but waiting to be diagnosed.
Unless you pay and have a spare £1k up sleeve

I'm an education welfare officer manager.
Maybe you have experience of 1 school. Try looking wider. I have knowledge of a very large Borough and all the schools in it.

upils with less than 50% attendance) had SEN), So 70% of pupils not attending school for at least 50% of the time do not have any identified SEND.

Not having any identified SEN and not having any SEN are two totally different things.

In a time where referrals for diagnosis literally take years, where much is missed because of high staff turnover and lack of outside services many children with SEN are undiagnosed, unhelped and in many cases simply unnoticed.

Yes, how can anyone be daft enough to think that no identified SEN means the same as no SEN?

It was always SEND that caused long term absences in my city. Inclusion teacher.

There are options at home to entertain you.
I was at school in 60s - not even tv to watch to pass the time at home - everyone went to school.

Those who had any sort of special needs, went to special school. Many mainstream schools had ‘remove’ or ‘remedial’ rooms with qualified teachers in to support children 1:1 or in small groups. The curriculum also allowed a lot more flexibility to spend a bit more time on x if the teacher needed.

We had a tv in the 60’s.

Loads missed school. There was no pressure on attendance and the leaving age was 14.

I agree, there were always people who didn’t go to school-‘bunking’ was a much used word. People would go into town, read books/comics, go to the park, smoke behind the garages. Truancy officers were a thing. I wonder what attendance figures look like in general as a trend over the last 50 years.

That’s really odd because in 1964 the school leaving age was raised legally to 16. How old are you?

I've been trying to find this out but with no luck. I can either find reports that only go back to about 2010, or very old documents talking about truancy in Victorian times.

I'm too young (and was much too much of a goodie two shoes) to have been aware of what attendance was realistically like in the 80s and 90s or before. But I can see it in stuff like people's memories of their own school-aged behaviour or books set in the 90s and earlier, where it seems like whole gangs of children were bunking off all together - obviously I don't know if that's accurate, but it seems like it might have been. I do wonder if the current stuff about attendance is more because there is more documentation and/or changing attitudes, as I'm sure there must have been attitudes in the past that if children from "problem families" weren't getting an education, what did it matter, they would only grow up to be criminals anyway. And children who couldn't attend due to anxiety, sensitivities etc - they were just written off weren't they? It's only been in the last 40 years or so that children with SEN were ruled that they must actually receive an education (FFS!) rather than being put in effectively a holding pen. Also the whole idea that (older) children were responsible for their own engagement (or not) in education.

Basically I feel like people have this view that "Oh there weren't all these problems with attendance in my day, we were grateful to receive an education!" - but surely, that's a self-selecting sample - the people who were grateful to receive an education went to school, the people who hated school bunked off and there wasn't a huge amount done about it, so if you were one of the school attenders, the non-attenders were much less visible.

And I wonder if that "visibility rule" is behind most of the "In my day XYZ" stuff.

But, I wasn't there and I don't really know. Would be interested to hear from anyone who does have experience working with anyone in the "less visible groups" from earlier than 1990.

It was passed in 64, but not instigated until 72.

I meant to put the leaving age was 15. Either way, you could leave without taking exams.

I’m 60

I remember a boy starting my primary school when I was about 7-he came in, swore at the teacher and refused to sit down, then when the head teacher was called-kicked him in the shin and tried to bite him. He was escorted off by the head and the lady from the office and never seen again.

Thats fairly standard behaviour now in mainstream and you’d probably be told that your lesson was too boring and you just need to have some restorative conversations with him in your own time!

I know my IL left at 15 and half - my parents tired or did stay on a bit longer in 60s to 16.

Did quick google and it wasn't implemented to 1972/3 though was announced in 1964 raise to 16 and Scotland, N.I were different as well with ages - Wales is still 16 but few do it as they aren't really jobs with any prospects.

This is SO TRUE.

Thenlong holidays are a real problem fornus. Not because of work (I’m SAHM) but everytime I get my child into the rhythm of going to school every day there’s another long holiday and then it’s a huge fight getting her back for the beginning of next term. Then you get her back and all the other kids have traveled round the country on hols and brought back new diseases, wenlast a week and then she’s got a tummy bug. Aaaaaagh.

Kids need less pressured classrooms, more exercise during the school day, shorter days and shorter holidays.

We already have some of the shortest summer holidays in the world, making them shorter will just mean it’s even more impossible for families to book affordable holidays. It’s already fine for kids in private schools to go away for cheaper holidays in their longer holidays and they also aren’t penalised by attendance fines if they go in term time-that would make it even harder for state school families.

There's talk of shortening summer holiday in Wales - possibly down to 4 weeks.

Same overall amount just disrupted differently.

https://www.theguardian.com/education/2023/nov/21/wales-wants-shorten-summer-school-holidays-really-too-long

Apparently a lot of the data round negative impact on students from USA where they have 12 week summer holidays - no idea what's happening with the idea in wales whether it happening - if it does come in next year will have limited impact for us as it's final exam years next year - though not sure how it will affect college term for Y12 for our youngest.

Presumably, though, he didn't cease to exist? I wonder what happened to him. It seems unlikely that he was enfolded nicely into any mainstream classroom, if that was the response.

I am not saying that "restorative convo by teacher without specialist training, in unpaid time" is an answer either (sounds like a recipe for disaster as well as teacher burnout, which of course we are seeing).

But children with difficult behaviour, at 7, probably aren't able to just decide to change their behaviour. They need adult support to do that and I don't think it's fair to write them off. They deserve to access education too.

Did you leave at 14 or 15? Either way I feel a creeping myth is developing that school used to be very relaxed, have no rules, no uniform and you could leave when you pleased. Which is very very far from the recollections of virtually everyone I know, ranging from our 30s-60s.