Why are Schools so obsessed with Childrens attendance?

[Darren2134]

Last Month, a parent told me something that really unsettled me: their child had received a letter branding him a “persistent absentee”. The kicker? If his attendance improved by 5%, he’d be invited to a party.
Let that sink in. A 5-year-old—just starting school life—is being incentivised to “try harder” to attend. But this isn’t really about motivating the child, is it? It’s a covert attempt to pressure the parent—using the child’s disappointment as leverage. The message is: Get them in, or they’ll be left out.
But who are these so-called “persistent absentees”? Often, they’re the kids who’ve been sick repeatedly—maybe with covid or other bugs. They’re the ones with unstable home lives, whose families might be struggling with poverty or mental health. Maybe the child is deeply anxious, overwhelmed by the transition to school, or dealing with SEN.
What good is a party to a child who is unwell, exhausted, or afraid? A glittery invitation doesn’t cure illness. It doesn’t magic up a bus fare. It doesn’t suddenly make school a place where a child feels safe.
This isn’t motivation—it’s manipulation. It weaponises disappointment. And it risks making vulnerable children feel ashamed, excluded, and “less than” for things utterly beyond their control.
The way we talk about attendance needs to change. Education should be accessible—but for some children, 100% attendance is simply not realistic. We should be asking why a child is struggling to attend, not punishing them for it.
We need to move away from blame and shame. Instead of pushing attendance as the end goal, how about asking how we can support children who are struggling? What would it look like if schools were funded and resourced to genuinely include all children, even those who can't always make it through the gates?
Curious what others think. Has anyone else experienced this kind of thing?

You again.

No. There is no evidence that “better attendance = better attainment”.

There is plenty of evidence that there is a positive correlation between attendance and attainment, on average.

There are very obvious reasons why this correlation exists which have been explained to you. The correlation does not imply a causative relationship.

Your posts are the equivalent of stating that because you see lots of umbrellas when it’s raining, you believe that umbrellas make it rain.

It has also been pointed out to you that taking average statistics across a population as a whole and trying to imply them to subsets with very specific issues does not provide you with any valid basis upon which to predict outcomes based on one shared factor across the subsets (low attendance) when those subsets have very little else in common with each other. This is a failure in basic mathematical and statistical understanding and not a valid basis upon which to design policy, no matter how many times you continue to repeat your misleading claims.

Therefore, your false assertion that simply forcing children into higher attendance - even by threatening and intimidating their families or shaming small children for poor attendance when they have no control over this - would improve attainment is completely un-evidenced. All available evidence seems to point towards there being numerous completely different and separate causes of low attendance and that low attendance is an effect (which in some subsets also correlates with low attainment: low attainment being another effect) not that the former causes the latter and that if only the former could be fixed everything would be fiiiiine as you’ve attempted to assert, repeatedly. You’ve provided no evidence to support your assertion that the relationship between the two factors is causative, yet there is copious, well-documented data indicating the contrary which you have conveniently ignored in all of your responses.

Given the variety of different reasons that children may have low attendance an individualised approach, understanding the causes of this in the specific child’s case, will be necessary if schools wish to improve the situation. It will also be necessary for schools to reflect on their own failings - given that there is evidence that this is a significant causal factor in low attendance rates in a significant proportion of cases - and stop trying to deflect blame onto families.

I agree. Agreeing with this could make it sound like I don't think attendance is important. That's not the case at all. I just don't like bad data. Or disingenuous or misleading use of data. Especially (but not only) when it's used in order to exclude sick children from things, or to make (some) parents feel bad for no good reason.

Bad data is absolutely rife in schools, and it leads to wrong conclusions, unrealistic or impossible targets, blaming of the wrong people/institutions and focusing on the wrong things.

How horrendous! You’d think OFSTED would have failed them simply for having cancelled the flu vaccinations and putting children at risk like that, given that flu can be dangerous for children. Poors kids all getting sick as a result and it really does demonstrate how many schools are run based on the priorities of the staff not the wellbeing or educational needs of the children.

OFSTED needs disbanding and replacing with an actual regulator that will do its job.

Absolutely.

And to be clear I am categorically not saying that attendance isn’t important, as I clarified earlier in the thread as well (although that should be obvious given I’ve fought so much to enable my children to attend!).

The issue is that - exactly as you’ve highlighted - dysfunctional and ineffective and in many cases actively harmful policy continues to be designed and implemented because of people acting based on prejudices, not understanding basic mathematical and statistical facts, making false logical inferences and, depressingly, being seemingly incapable even of understanding that this is what they are doing even when it’s highlighted to them like it has been here. Nothing will improve for children, teachers or families while this approach continues.

The children are the collateral damage in all of this, many of life chances wrecked and many of their families’ home lives trashed as well by the fallout of these “education policies”.

Thanks for articulating this so well.

We got attendance letters when our child was very unwell and under hospital care. E also got them when child was not able to attend chool due to unmet needs. So it is families with unwell children who are targeted

The point is schools are not meeting these children's needs and schools are causing a mental health issues for many young people.

If work was making you ill the medication wouldn't be. To force you into that same environment day after day without any adjustments to enable you to work.

Saw this and thought of this thread

Exactly. Adults can choose their work environment. They can choose to leave an environment that is unbearable for them and do something else, find a new employer, change career.

Children do not have this choice.

Imagine if you were allocated a job at random and told that no matter how unsuitable it was to your physical ability, mental ability or talents you must go and do this every day for a decade and a half, no arguments.

How many of you could do it?

We need a variety of schools that cater for the needs and abilities of different children. Pretending that children are identical little clones and can all function and learn in the same environment is quite clearly utter nonsense to anybody who knows anything about child development or, indeed, has ever met a human being.

Instead the Government and LAs push towards trying to force everyone into a “mainstream” environment that works for nobody because the children who shouldn’t be there make it not work even for those for whom it might otherwise be just about good enough, on the unacceptable shoestring education budget allocated.

For an idea of what it might be like to attend school as an autistic child I often think that teachers/ LA staff/ others with such appalling attitudes should be made to sit in a room all day with people shouting and screaming through loudspeakers all day long, everyone speaking to each other at all being required to use one.

There should also be noises like nails scratching down blackboards, buzzing and whirring sounds played throughout the day through speakers.

There should also be various spotlights positioned around the room at awkward angles to shine directly into their eyes no matter where they look. These lights must flicker constantly like strobe lighting.

The temperature should be turned down to -5 but they shouldn’t be allowed to wear a coat, and they should be forced to wear socks filled with sand inside their shoes and clothes lined with sandpaper.

The walls should be covered in psychedelic patterns in neon colours to make them feel sick, and various disgusting smells should be pumped into the room all day like strong odours of B.O. and farts.

Everyone should be required to wear a mask covering their whole face at all times as well so that nobody can read each other’s facial expressions to help them understand what they are trying to communicate to each other over the background noise.

Should they find this unpleasant at any point and ask to have a break from the environment for a few minutes they should be told to stop being so entitled and thinking they are special, quit whinging and just get on with it. Surely, after all, they can just turn down the sensitivity levels of their eyes and ears and sense of smell and nerve endings on demand to suit the environment? Who do they think they are, being so demanding and precious?

Then, at the end of the day they can feed back how they think it went, and it should be announced at that point that they’ll be doing the same for the next four days running. Oh, and next week, and the week after that, and….

And then, on top of this, go home to find their family members distraught because they’re being threatened by the people who organised these “educational” activities for them that if they don’t send them back to do it every day no matter how distressed they are, they might not be allowed to live together or see each other anymore.

Enjoy. See how long it would take you as an adult to have a breakdown in this situation. Then realise that this is what is being done to small children across the country, some of whom are extremely intelligent and could become our highest taxpayers in the future if this systematic and deliberate traumatising of them is ceased: if someone reading this happens to the kind of person who cares about is economics, not the wellbeing of children, then this is economically shooting yourself in the foot, as is traumatising those who won’t be high achievers because I will bet you my house that making their childhood that ^ for 5 days out of 7 will limit their functionality and increase their welfare dependence far above what it would have been in a functional education system, decrease tax revenues, increase healthcare costs, lower productivity and cost us all far, far more than an appropriate education for each child would have cost, even if you don’t care about the actual PEOPLE whose lives are being trashed.

As with most things in this country we know the cost of everything and the value of nothing. And I say that as an economist.

Absolutely this. She is either stupid beyond belief and utterly incapable of her job, or she is sadistic. Time will tell which is the cause of her behaviour but either way she will do more harm to children than tens of thousands of abusive parents could inflict between them if she continues down her proposed path.

This is true but schools are all talk on their side and no action. My DD is ASD and was already struggling with overwhelm and poor attendance towards the end of term, then the bullying started and she was threatened with violence if she came in to school. I called the school and asked to speak to the EBSNA contact assigned especially to help with emotionally based school attendance issues and was told she was busy moving furniture and that we should have a nice summer. This, in a school that’s supposed to be the best in the county for SEND support. I’d been asking them for support for weeks, worrying about how she would cope with the transition in sept and the best they could do was email her timetable for next year. It’s pathetic.

This annoys me so much.
My child isn't able to attend school. We begged for years for the support they needed and the adjustments they needed to be able to attend school and actually have the right support that would give them a chance of learning while.
The school was useless and the LA refused a EHCP to fund the required support. They failed to provide EOTAS when child was medically unable to attend for extended periods.

Seeing stupid propaganda like this is so upsetting. My child deserves an education too. I don't need more pressure and hassle from schools who if they actually cared would have made the adjustments needed

Maybe if these children were properly supported in school they would be less likely to be on benefits as adults.

SEN children are most likely to be in benefits not because the have SEN but because the education system is failing them so badly.
Investing in making sure the education system meets the needs of our most vulnerable would actually mean they are less likely to need benefits as adults.
But no we live in a world where they are getting Failed, the parents are getting the blame, families in crisis and under crazy pressure and the result is future costs in benefits and mental health support.

It is male bovine excrement again, so better ignored. Ignorant and idiotic people - who allegedly are meant to be educating the next generation - quoting nonsense statistics.

Children from higher income households will have higher attendance. They’ll also have access to many more opportunities and extra curricular activities and better medical care and better housing and food etc.

Children who aren’t seriously ill will likely have better health in later life which is a pretty much a requirement to build a decent career. They’ll also have lower attendance at school.

Children who have SEN are likely to have lower attendance because schools fail them. Many of them - if forced by their parents to attend without appropriate provision - would end up dead, so anything they earn later in life is a bonus compared to what they’d achieve with more of the trauma school causes to them. For those that survive, the mental health costs in many cases seem to vastly outweigh anything they’ve learned while there, because so few achieve their potential. The idea that subjecting them to more of this without changing the environment or meeting their needs would improve their life outcomes is laughable.

And based on this thread, those children who do have abusive or neglectful homes are being shamed in some schools for the fact they aren’t able to attend more, when an adult does enable them to attend, which will doubtless make them feel unsafe and rejected and unwanted at school as well as at home: hardly something likely to elevate their educational attainment or life chances or even their ability to build trust in an adult at school and confide in them so that they aren’t suffering completely alone.

It’s blatantly obvious that a number of reasons for low attendance will ALSO cause lower performance in exams, but only an imbecile would suggest that the solution is therefore to bully sick/ disabled/ neglected children and their families thinking this will increase their attendance or educational outcomes.

The primary cause of lower attainment than the child’s ability means should be achievable is not the fact that they have not attended more in the case of any of the subsets of pupils listed above. And in none of these cases would simply forcing more attendance from them do anything to improve the child’s life.

I’d be interested to hear any data on a subset of pupils for which the current bullying, intimidation, threatening and shaming approach from schools is effective and has led to higher attendance rates and also higher attainment. Since we’ve had many posters here defending such behaviour from schools and LAs and explicitly stating that attendance = attainment it should be easy for them to provide an example of a subset of pupils where this approach from schools and LAs has actually led to higher attendance rates and also better attainment as a result: they are adamant that the relationship is causal so this should be easy and I expect multiple academic studies with data to now be posted...

I’ll wait…

Children with serious illnesses are excluded
Maybe not all.but in some schools it is happening

Yes. My cleaner’s little boy is very seriously ill. In and out of hospital. His school has followed the typical pattern: tried to blame the parent, threatened her, made xenophobic comments as well because she is not originally from the UK even though her child is a UK citizen who was born here, insisted on a part-time timetable for him with no additional educational provision for him outside these school hours (illegal), generally made their lives hell and almost destroyed her marriage now; their family is on the verge of ripping apart under the stress. She lost her full time job (that she was doing in addition to additional hours doing cleaning for people like me, to try to provide the best life possible for her children) because she had to take “too much time off to take her child to medical appointments”, the irony being that her employer was the NHS!

This country will continue on its downwards trajectory doom loop unless some serious policies to redirect a much larger proportion of public spending towards children and young people are implemented without much further delay. Without this, ever-declining living standards and escalating costs for everyone will continue.

Thankfully my son's school were incredibly supportive, it was the LA that was the issue in my case.

I really feel for your cleaner, I lost my full time job too when my son was in hospital. I was chatting to the oncology social worker when she was helping with the DLA forms and she said she wished she could tell me it's just my work place but it was a common theme among parents who have children with cancer (and I imagine other serious illnesses too). I hope her little boy will make a speedy recovery.

She is such a lovely, kind woman, she really doesn’t deserve this. Not that any of us do. Why make life even more hellish for families already struggling with the unimaginably hard and upsetting and difficult situations that most people don’t even want to think about by trying to blame them for the problem caused by your own incompetence and illegal behaviour? It’s the worst kind of gaslighting and to do this to people already in vulnerable situations is despicable and unforgivable, whether it be schools or LAs that do it, but it’s certainly worse when they’re in cahoots against the child and family.

That’s good that your son’s school were supportive at least, so you didn’t feel like you were being attacked from all directions at once and had someone on your side. Fortunately, in my case, I have three OFSTED registered nannies that work in our home at different times caring for my children while I work (doing a combination or wrap around and school holiday care the exceeds my annual leave) so it was easy for me to evidence that these ridiculous and disgusting false accusation against me, trying to claim my children’s home life was the problem, were false. On top of the evidence from multiple doctors and specialists all unequivocally stating the same.

But most of these doctors were private ones, otherwise I’d have one child dislocating joints and another completely deaf throughout most of primary school still waiting to have operations or treatment, let alone them receiving any diagnosis or support for their autism.

So what happens to the children whose parents can’t fund private medical treatment or legal battles, and have mud slung at them like this? Or don’t have OFSTED registered nannies working in their home who can vouch for the fact that there are no safeguarding concerns whatsoever at home and the problem causing the distress is the school?

Kids like me, when I was young, who have nobody able/ willing to protect them.

Those children will get no help whatsoever and be unable to access school and then everyone will say “see! Neglectful parents who can’t be bothered!” when it is actually schools and Local Authorities doing this to these children on purpose.

My heart breaks to think of the poor child who finally gets their neglectful parent to take them to school one day and then is told that the other children are having a party as a reward for having been there every day (which this child desperately wanted to do but could not because nobody would take them there or pick them up) and so they must be excluded and sit alone and not get to be with their friends. It was bad enough for my child, from a loving home, to be effectively excluded for so long even though her behaviour at school was impeccable, she had done nothing wrong, except be born with a disability that means that she cannot function in an environment with that much noise and so many people all day without any breaks and support. Her asking me when she could go back, feeling left out, but also terrified to go and unable to do so until I could reassure her that she would not be subjected to this again, which I could not for over three months because they wouldn’t even speak to me about a solution to make it safe for her to attend.

Anybody who can countenance treating our most vulnerable children in such a manner should be barred from any employment involving minors for life. Yet a really worrying proportion of posters on this thread, some of whom clearly work in education, seem to think it is perfectly fine.

The mould has spread to a large proportion of the barrel of apples, sadly, to the extent that many working in the education sector now actually believe the kind of behaviour we’ve been discussing is “normal” to the extent not just that they sweep it under the carpet and turn a blind eye (bad enough) but that they will actually write on a public forum trying to defend the indefensible. It’s mind-boggling and as I’ve said wouldn’t happen in any other regulated sector. Huge changes with a massive crackdown and severe penalties are needed in order to eradicate the mould and stop it spreading this toxic culture, then we can begin to rebuild something that resembles an actual education system from scratch.

I'm not sure what's more ridiculous, thinking that working a 4 day week (which many people do because they work part time) is equivalent to taking 1 day a week off sick, or thinking that the 4 day work week would work if all staff got 13 weeks a year off.

Kids get 190 days of education every year, that's 52% of the year. And it's 30 hrs a week.

Meanwhile, teachers are pulling 60 hr weeks, paid for 195 days, working through most of their unpaid leave and treated like criminals if they take a sick day. And people call them workshy.

@SlithyMomeRaths I'm so sorry you and your daughter had to go through that. The way many schools and local authorities treat disabled children is absolutely child abuse.

Thank you.

As a survivor of severe abuse in childhood in my home, I view what schools are doing to children as child abuse that is just as serious.

If something happening in my child’s home had been causing her to become suicidal aged 5 you can bet that something would be done about it. Yet when so-called “professionals” at school did this to her - even though her disabilities were diagnosed and well evidenced and discussed with the school before she started there - nothing is done about this. No consequences. So of course they continue doing this over and over again to more families.

Thank you for your kind thoughts. It breaks my heart apart to think of how many children’s lives are being needlessly ruined and we still get these ridiculous threads blaming parents, posters making ridiculous comments telling parents of disabled children to “just homeschool them” or “just get up earlier”, idiotic and defensive so-called teachers spouting unscientific claims and not being able to understand basics about data and statistics. Ignorant people determined to refuse to accept any data or facts or even the deeply upsetting personal stories that a number of posters have shared because they’re so entrenched in their determination that parents must be to blame.

It’s all so very depressing and there are so many children suffering across the country. I had hoped so much that things had changed since I was at school but many people seem determined to damage another generation of children before any “lessons will be learned”…. Oh, the irony. It’s like living in a Kafka novel.

@SlithyMomeRaths
I'm so sorry you went though that and I completely agree. If this country held professionals to the same standard as we hold parents with regard to child abuse and neglect, many of them would find themselves facing very serious consequences.
I am disabled myself but only acquired my disability in adulthood, and it's hard enough having to deal with the way I am treated as a disabled adult, I can't even imagine how hard it must be for children. It's completely unconscionable how so many children are treated, and many people seem to live in a ridiculous fantasy world where they believe disabled children are somehow treated too well by society, and given too much support! It seems like there has been increased awareness of disability over the last several years but that it has actually made peoples attitudes towards disability worse, not better.
I really hope things are better now for your daughter and you ❤ 💐

The way all disabled people are treated and spoken about in the UK is an absolute disgrace. As can be seen from the state of the education system and the “Education Secretary”’s proposals, this Government don’t care even about disabled children and - having ascertained that they are being failed - are actively taking steps to make things significantly worse for them and remove the meagre support that they have now (only after long legal battles to enforce it).

Disabled adults are treated in a similarly disgusting manner and constantly demonised in the media in the last 15 years. What’s “funny” is the economic illiteracy of the electorate. In OECD terms we spend a roughly average amount on our disabled population. Amongst our comparator nations it is far, far below average. Employment participation is higher now than it’s been at any point since the early 1970s. Yet apparently disabled people are the problem with society and we should condemn them to poverty and deprive disabled children - by definition the very most vulnerable members of any society - of the education they require which is not just a right in UK law but in international law: the UK would be scathing of even a developing country that denied children their human right to an education, yet we’re told that it’s acceptable for this to happen in the UK?

If we cannot provide for the most vulnerable members of our society and want to blame them for our economic problems then unfortunately I think our electorate is simply too stupid and economically illiterate for it to be possible to reverse the UK’s ongoing economic and social decline. It’s still possible now to reverse this decline but it won’t happen if people continue to try to look for a scapegoat rather than actually engage in the economics and what needs to be changed to make the country more prosperous. There could not be a more obvious attempted “othering” distraction from the actual issues that need to be resolved and the very obvious policy solutions that would improve things in the UK; none of which involve leaving disabled children without education or making disabled adults - already the poorest cohort in the UK - even poorer.

Sadly, I think it may be a case of a country getting the politicians and outcomes the electorate deserve. It’s just horrible that those of us who aren’t voting for this type of idiotic nonsense also have to endure the consequences, or abandon ship.

I am so sorry to hear you are disabled. It must be extremely worrying given all of the toxic rhetoric being directed at disabled people currently. History won’t look kindly on this period and it will be shameful in time for those who have supported all of this.

There are things the Chancellor can do to vastly improve the UK economy in a matter of months, but she chooses not to do so. There is no excuse for scapegoating our most vulnerable citizens and punishing them for decades of politicians’ incompetence.

One day, in the future, I hope that our politicians will be held accountable for the consequences: the personal consequences for the individuals and families they have victimised, but also wider social consequences and the economic consequences of their dysfunctional policies because these policies have and are continuing to make everyone in the UK poorer because they increases long-term costs in terms of welfare, lost growth and productivity and tax revenue, additional costs in the justice system, higher state-funded housing costs, lower growth, higher healthcare costs, higher state dependency in retirement, etc.

I hope you and your family are ok and thank you for your kind responses. Sometimes it feels like shouting into the void so some people actually acknowledging the validity of what I’ve said here means a lot. Both of my children are so very vulnerable so I expect to have to continue fighting for them for many years, just for them to have access to the basic services that other children can access as a matter of course and survive their teenage years. It is exhausting, but I must protect them from as much damage as I can. Parents are shamed or threatened into keeping quiet about what happens and scared to speak out so I felt I had to, given some of the outrageous and completely fictitious claims that some posters were making which made me furious, but the fair and caring and compassionate comments from you and others really are very much appreciated, as it can all be extremely isolating and it is heartbreaking to see such harm caused to your child when it was all so easily avoidable.

@SlithyMomeRaths
I've been so incredibly disappointed by the behaviour of Labour since they got in. I didn't have high hopes for them after some of the things they said in the lead up to the election, but I naively thought they at least had to be better than the Tories. They've been so much worse that I could possibly have imagined. It's such an incredible betrayal of their own history and the entire original mission of the party. I think you're right about the electorate, a large number of people in this country are deeply ignorant and cruel, and the rest of us have to suffer for it. 😢
Thankyou ❤ Things are very difficult at the moment but I'm doing my best to keep going.
You sound like a brilliant mum and your children are fortunate to have you fighting for them. It's just so incredibly wrong that you have to fight abuse from the people who are supposed to be supporting your children. 💐
I try to hold onto hope that things will get better for disabled people in this country, but it's getting harder and harder to believe.

Children who can’t attend school for medical reasons obviously shouldn’t be punished for their low attendance - I haven’t read any comments saying that they should. Or any support for draconian policies. It’s awful that there are some rubbish schools who don’t support children in these situations. My DC was fortunate to have had a very supportive school when she missed nearly a term with long covid.

I stand by the fact that WHERE POSSIBLE it is better for children to be in school. The data does support this - including studies that take other factors into account (send, free school lunches etc). I don’t understand what is so contentious about saying that missing chunks of school makes progress harder. It’s just a painful fact. Anecdotes about individual successes don’t mean this isn’t generally true.

Unfortunately there are parents that do allow their kids to miss school for trivial reasons - saying this is not ‘victim blaming’ parents of children who are seriously ill. Many of these kids do not have SEN or medical conditions. It is not ‘deflecting’ or being defensive, it is sadly true. It is a very serious problem that has absolutely nothing to do with your situation. When schools talk about raising attendance it’s this group they are thinking about -NOT YOU.

It would be really useful to be able to have a discussion about this - why it has happened and possible solutions without it being derailed.

There are also children who are kept off school deliberately because they are in abusive situations - that’s why it is a safeguarding concern that schools take seriously. It’s heartbreaking. Trying to help these groups does mean that there are policies that have to be followed EVEN if it might mean asking the intrusive questions of appearing inflexible. The first rule of safeguarding is that we can’t make assumptions.

So my question to Slithy is - do you actually understand that there some children who are in different situations to yours? Do you think that children in neglectful families should just be ignored? Do you understand that the actions of your school may not be typical? Can you not separate your own difficult experience from those of children and parents in different situations?