AIBU to ask how your (child's) school tackles lateness/poor attendance

[user0786]

Hi All,

Posting on AIBU for traffic.

I just wanted to ask how your school (if you work in a school setting) or your child's school helps to tackle lateness/poor attendance.

The school I work at has struggled post pandemic, to get students back into school and in on time. The school is extremely supportive of MH issues and other barriers to learning (maybe a bit too lenient perhaps in some situations) however, the bottom line is that these children are missing out on their education. I understand in some situations school may not be the number one priority because there are bigger safeguarding or welfare concerns. But I'm more concerned about the day to day lateness or absence due to 'I couldn't wake up' 'I can't be bothered to come in' 'I missed my bus'.

We give after school detentions to students who have no valid reason to be late (parent hasn't called, or no medical appointment or note) but it doesn't really seem to be working all that much.

So what does your school do/offer to help tackle the above? As mentioned, I understand there are a range of resins pupils refuse school but I'm on about the students who just don't enjoy school or prefer to be at home (not the students with safeguarding or welfare concerns)

Anyone? X

It’s an impossible situation, which is probably why schools and LAs have misguidedly introduced fines for term time holidays. The responsibility for getting children to school has to lie with parents.

Your job should be to educate and support the students once they arrive in school, you shouldn’t have to worry about how to get the students into school when they just don’t want to go.

Well, it's not hard to see why punishing a child for not wanting to be at school is just going to continue the problem. How is that going to make them want to be at school?

The answer is to address the root cause, but that takes effort and resources.

In my Primary we run fun but educational morning clubs like outdoor ed/ cooking that are aimed at low attenders( they usually start around 9)If they're late they don't get to do it. We try to put siblings in a different session each day so it encourages the others to come in too as we find that if one kid is ill then the whole family stays at home.

attendance is a huge issue though and this activity might not really work for secondary. Primary kids attendance is mainly down to parents.

Came on to say exactly this. Detentions for poor attendance is a stupid policy.

The solution is, as always, put money into decent educational welfare support.

Are you talking primary or secondary? Because what works in my primary is unlikely to work in a secondary.

If they are late, they come in, we say, "Oh, there you are. Lovely. Take a seat. This is what we're doing..."
If they are ill, they are ill. I'm quite glad that parents keep them home in that case.

However, we don't do detentions at ours anyway. There's no pressure on attendance figures. We don't give certificates for attendance. If a child is off a lot, I speak to the parents to check whether there's anything going on and just to make them aware that it's something to keep an eye on.

As parent of a child who attended for maybe 20% of years 10 and 11, nothing the school could have done would have improved a very specific situation.
We fought them over the after school detentions - it made things worse and on some occasions neither of us could collect said child so if they couldn't take the bus it was a 10 mile walk home in the dark.

If it’s general teenager lateness, then two minutes dentention for every minute they are late worked really well in my Secondary. If there are genuine reasons,
parents let us know, and we check the trains/buses/tubes and if it’s affecting loads of kids then that is different.

Specific kids - SLT phoning to get them to leave, in a few cases, collecting kids. Offer of free hot breakfast things. Giving them somewhere warm inside to wait.

Now based in a Primary - class punctuality competition is working well. Class with the fewest late minutes gets a treat on Friday afternoon.

We have a really good HOY who is really supportive and will adjust timetables, talk to teachers about seating arrangements, talk and encourage kids, give the kids alternative spaces to work and so on. The school is particularly good at supporting MH and wellbeing. They know that happier kids want to be at school and work with the parents and kids. This is a secondary school. The whole school are championing lesson behaviours and really reward effort, behaviour and not just academic achievement.

Does your school have an EWO? Admittedly, they're like Rocking Horse Shit these days, but they've got a lot more clout than somebody dishing out detentions that half won't go to and another quarter will have parents lying for them/kicking off that the bus didn't come despite staff and 45 other kids from the same direction managing perfectly well to catch it and arrive at 8.30am without a Starbucks frappumochalokadoodlefroo in hand and full set of false eyelashes on

This is a really difficult one for us too.
Detentions don't work and the government and Ofsted want to see effective policies and practices in place which show an improvement in attendance and punctuality.
We speak to the students first, then bring it up with parents over the phone, then call parents in to speak to them one to one.
It's all really time consuming, improvements last a couple of weeks maximum then things slide again.

Oh god it's an old thread!