First week 'critical' to avoid children missing school later, parents told

[Bloodyscarymary]

I just saw this article in the BBC and am astounded at the daft reasoning. Apparently, students who miss days in the first week of school are more likely to be persistently absent, therefore we need a critical focus on attendance in the first week to reduce absence.

I feel like someone needs to let the DfE know that correlation does not equal causation! Surely it’s just that children with factors causing absence are more likely to miss a day in the first week than children who don’t have those factors. I am pretty sure if they took a data subset from ANY week in the year, persistently absent students would be more likely to be absent in that week than non persistently absent students!

Therefore it’s not the week that’s critical, it’s the factors driving absence we need to focus on.

I am all for having a public awareness campaign but why muddy statistics like this instead of just talking about what is actually needed to solve absence.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cg7jk3rr225o

What happens in the first week or two of say year 4 that’s so important?

With three children the first week at least is just going over rules yet again, lots of shuffling of who’s sitting where, teachers off “sick”, colouring or equivalent.

They already have transition days prior to moving up a year and they move up with their entire class here. The last week is colouring, movies, sports, taking apart the classroom boards.

As a former welfare and attendance officer in a school, I get where they are coming from.

The ones who were on holiday at the start of September term were usually the parents who didn’t give a shit about school attendance. They were the ones who had the lowest attendance throughout the year.

dd is starting secondary next week and two of her friends are missing the first week due to holidays. That’s a really shit thing to do to a kid IMO, starting year 7 is a massive thing usually accompanied by some sort of anxiety.

“Just going over the rules
…
shuffling who sits where
..”
getting over the shared illnesses

and if you have kids turn up 2 weeks late all that settling in and reminding time gets extended - your child isn’t so special that they don’t need that

I’ve never taken mine out but can’t say I’ve ever noticed those who have causing issues to the class.

Never had Sophie was on holiday and now she’s back we all had to move seats again. Now Thomas is back we all had to go over the rules again.

More just school goes on as normal and that child has to catch up and hit the ground running.

That’s true, perhaps there was better analysis behind the scenes but I feel like the BBC article would have said that if so as it adds more detail/gravitas to the story?

I think the BBC dumbs things down a lot. But who knows!? I might try to find the paper :-)

But that’s the point. Those kids will have shit attendance regardless. Making sure they go to school in the first week isn’t going to mean that their attendance for the rest of the year will be better.
Correlation, not causation.

Whilst I appreciate that correlation does not equal causation, missing the first week can be a factor in getting off to a shaky start, although a resilient child will bounce back, and illness can be an unavoidable reason.
As a class teacher, I found that, if it was a group forming for the first time, for example coming into the juniors, a great deal of the first week could be spent on basics like new routes about the building, the consistent way to lay out work, routines for different subjects etc. and assessing how much (or how little) progress had been affected by the "summer slide" and spotting quickly where extra support would be needed.
To the outside observer, it could seem that less actual work was getting done.
In my own family, one younger sister was knocked off balance by this for quite a while. Mum took the view that her older brother hadn't actually done much formal work at the start of Year 7, so took advantage of a bargain break in Greece for the first two weeks in September when younger sister was due to start. By the time they got back, new friendship groups had formed, everyone else was cheerfully trotting of in the right direction at changeover time, using their planner, bringing the right gear on the right day etc etc

…but we are not post covid! Lots of people have covid at this moment! Covid and long covid will both be reasons for some of the increase in absence for pupils, teachers and other staff!

That poor girl. Missing the first week of something like starting year 7 in a brand new school is going to be horrible. As you said all
the strangers meet and start to form friendships. They have worked out the new layout of the school. It’s like a newbie starting half way though the year.

These are all really good points - if I was education secretary I would be focusing on reminding parents of this. Perhaps the journalist just wrote the article poorly, focusing in on shaky statistics rather than the real issue which is likely as you have described.

Are people deliberately misunderstanding, or just not reading? The article says:

"It comes as data first seen by the BBC reveals more than half of pupils who missed some of the first week went on to become "persistently absent" in 2024, compared with just 14% of pupils who fully attended the first week."

So there is a massive red flag raised by missing some of school in the first week back. Yes it could be chicken pox or some other illness. But if it's holiday, or "sore stomach" or some other rubbish excuse it is a very good indication that this child is going to be a persistent offender and have poor attendance for the rest of the year.

I think it very much depends on the reasons for absence but it does make sense from resilience angle for kids that are not dealing with any other issues but are a bit nervous with a headache or a tummy ache etc. Those children if not encouraged to step out of their comfort zone and overcome their nerves are the ones who develop more sever anxieties later on.

Yes it’s a red flag but it doesn’t follow that to reduce absence you should make sure everyone attends the first week. The logical conclusion from the data is something like, schools should focus on supporting children who miss school in the first week as that is an indication that they are more likely to become persistently absent (due to factors in their life that cause this).

This is assuming that there wasn’t some amazing data analysis behind the scenes that controlled for socio economic, health etc factors and showed that it’s missing days in the first week rather than these other factors that causes persistent absence.

I think everyone understands that. The point is that the way the article is written implies that if they can encourage those children to go in for that week, it will mean they will have fewer absences for the rest of the year. Totally ignoring the underlying reasons for them being absent in that first week. Having time off in the first week doesn’t necessarily cause more absences for the rest of the term.

I was literally thinking “correlation doesn’t equal causation” and then saw you’d identified that in your post. Agree OP.

Agreed, my eldest is moving up with her entire class, I would hazard a guess she will have the same friends as last year. I don't know what these magical "new rules/routines" are that people speak about that she is going to have to learn, she is 10 so pretty switched on. She had several transition days before the summer holidays so is clear on her new teacher and classroom. I can access her new timetable online so no surprises there.
The youngest also had several transition days, class slightly changing but she is aware of who her peers will be and comfortable with her new tutor.
Yes they are both starting back slightly later than the majority but it's quite a reach to suggest this leads to anxiety and mental health issues, not all children are that weak minded that they can not cope with something being a little different.
I actually asked the eldest how she coped with this a couple of years ago and I mentioned what people were saying on here. She brushed it off immediately.
Obviously it depends on your children and your school situation as to how things pan out and what decisions you make. For us the chance to have a family holiday without putting ourselves in debt does outweigh the few days missed of school. For the record I do take attendance seriously, eldest had 100% last year.

Teacher absence through illness has increased pretty much the same amount as pupil illness-related absence, compared to pre-pandemic. I’m pretty sure that’s not down to their parents or misunderstanding the importance of school.

I strongly suspect that's down to teachers being signed off with stress. For children and adults alike, schools desperately need more funding, it would benefit everyone in education.

For you, the chance to have a cheaper holiday is better than giving your child a good education, and preventing disruptions to other children and you are teaching that pleasure takes priority over work. Because you know better.

My ASD DD struggled to go to school at the beginning and end of every term. The rest of the time she was fine. She hated the ‘buzz’ and excitement of a new term and couldn’t cope with the end of term silliness and change to the routine.

There are lots of reasons why children struggle to attend school. Jumping to illogical conclusions from attendance data doesn’t help anyone.

@Bloodyscarymary YANBU.

This was exactly my first thought when I read the article.

My DD (9 - ASD and likely ADHD) attended school every day in her first week of school last year. Steady, multi-faceted descent into EBSA and she finished the year on 73% attendance. "Persistently" absent, yet she had 100% attendance for the first week.

Although the year ended with some improvement, she still has the same risk factors that lead to EBSA. However, that has little to do with her attendance for the first week - it may be 100% again... or 50%.

And for those saying, "Just implement routines!", "Don't take no for an answer!".... Been there, done it, made absolutely zero difference.

Her brother, by the way, had 98% attendance last year.

Yes, this.

I'm pretty rule-abiding and I agree that school attendance is really important.

But an accidental run-in with a harsh and inflexible attendance policy last year has very much damaged my relationship with the school - and now I really don't give any credence to the term time holiday rule - so heaven knows what is does to families who are already struggling or disengaged. No good can come from it.

I still would avoid absences as far as possible in the first week or two of September though, it's not fun to feel left behind, even if they've been at the school before.

Like maybe a system that records whether the student was entitled to FSM, whether they'd had transitional protection, received FSM in the 6 years prior, if they had SEND, an EHCP, had previously had SEND, whether they were young carers, looked after, post looked after, forces children, what their first language was, their ethnicity?

It's called the mandatory live link to the DfE.

Then it can be correlated with termly census returns, key stage testing data, multiplication tables data, phobics screening data; that kind of thing.