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?

Just a reminder that “only” 5% is 10 days. So two weeks of school.
i wont say my opinion either way but it does annoy me when people say their children have “85% attendance” as if that’s a high number when that means their kid has effectively missed an entire half term that school year.

I understand that it isn't teachers choice in England, just the situation when someone decided that instead of targeted help they will set targets to the schools and the schools are trying to comply.

It just feels like throwing a baby with the bath water. Generally compliant families are bullied because of braces and chickenpox, while it does little to address the reasons of poor attendance.

Our system has different issues - we see many things as parental responsibility, and are systematically surprised if the parents won't or can't fulfil the expectations. And the capacity and choice of high school places (15-18yos) is seriously embarrassing.

I found this a bit perplexing coming from Canada to the UK (and now back in Canada) because you can take your kids out for any reason here and you aren’t fined. It’s generally seen as good if the kids go on a family holiday even term time - and we get 9 weeks off in the summer.

Persistent absenteeism isn’t a huge problem even at the inner city school I work at, and generally that means there’s a problem at the family level. I work as a CYCW and a huge part of my role is absenteeism and working directly with the family and community supports to provide help to the family with the reasons they’re struggling and identifying at risk children. Even in my school though, the numbers of absent children aren’t super high even with no penalty.

The attendance awards I read about make me a bit sad though as young children or ill children can’t really help their attendance, that’s down to their parents and circumstance.

I don't think many people quibble the fact that better attendance = better outcomes. The problem here is solely that awards for 100% is discriminatory and illogical. Making children responsible for decisions made by adults, and to make them feel like they have failed because of it is reprehensible, and should have not place in good practice when it comes to school culture.

A 5-year old has very little agency on whether they attend school - that decision is made by the parents. So excluding a child from a party or a prize when someone else has made the decisions is wholly unfair.

It's also not about being morally superior -avoiding illness, hospitalisation, family bereavement or chaotic home lives is down to luck, pure and simple - you may as well pick names out of a hat and then allow those children to attend the party and exclude the others.

Also, once you have missed a single day you can't win the 100% award any longer so the 'incentive' immediately disappears. What are you teaching then?

Exactly !!! @OnlyMabelInTheBuilding !!
the kickback for incentivising kids being in school says so much !!!!

Schools aren't incentivising kids, in the vast vast majority of cases, young children have no choice about whether they attend or not so there's no incentive at all. The 'kickback' is because children are being held responsible for other people's decisions.

of course a school isn’t going to penalise a kid for being off school with the chick pox - there will be a bigger picture if poor attendance there !!

Schools definitely DO penalise kids off with chickenpox - and those following school policy by staying off with D&V, COVID, HFM etc - so I don't know what you're talking about here.

(although I do very much love that you called it 'the chick pox', that's adorable and I will be using it in all further conversation)

It's cruel to punish children for lack of attendance which they have no control over. It's also appalling to punish children for being ill, I know children with very serious illnesses like leukaemia who have missed school and been left out of treats and trips as a result. And the obsession with attendance at all costs means children get sent in when they are ill and end up making other children ill.

I’m personally sick to the back teeth of this shit. A sick kid is a sick kid. The teachers can & school mgmt can huff & puff & blow the house down but it is what it is.

Also one of my kids had a life threatening illness and the school were well aware & I still had to listen to their shit & my kid still had to miss out on 💯 parties. Little hitler shit

Nothing to do with going to a party, my comment was to the original post. General attendance.
Many persistent absentees give no reason for absence.
if the school doesn’t know where they are, and the parents/carers haven’t said why they aren’t in, technically then no one knows where the child is…
The public would certainly get on a council or schools back for not chasing a child’s attendance when a safeguarding concern comes to light.

My ds was a persistent school refuser, his attendance at best was around 60%. He is autistic, has very poor MH, suffers from anxiety & depression. I spent most of the time he was in secondary school fighting to get him accepted by CAMHS, who rejected referrals several times simply because he was autistic. They said that the Children's autism service should deal with his MH, the autism service kept on referring him to CAMHS as they said MH problems were outside their remit. When I finally got him seen, they refused to prescribe him antidepressants, he had to wait until he turned 18. He was also severely bullied in school & school refused to deal with the bullies, stating that nothing could be done because they had a chaotic home life & were basically ferral, tell me about it, they were the children of the family that led to us having to leave the lovely council house we had due to antisocial behaviour, threats of violence & vandalism. They spent all day & night drinking, dealt drugs openly, even the police were reluctant to deal with them, telling us that there would be serious repercussions if we went through with our complaint after my partner was assaulted & that it was " the law of the jungle"

I begged school to do something after ds had his bag slashed with a blade, the fabric was so thick it was impossible to be cut with scissors, so the blade was capable of causing serious injury or death, but they weren't prepared to search the culprit or do anything about it.

Despite all this, ds still managed to leave having passed all his GCSE's he started to do his A levels but the toll on his MH was too much & he had to drop out, I was told he would never make anything of himself & would end up in a dead end job if he managed to get anything at all.

2 years later he has just completed his foundation year of a degree in Urban Studied & planning, he came top of his course & if his work carries on at the level he is now will leave university with a top class degree, the only time he has missed was when he was admitted to hospital, he even went back when he was supposed to be on 2 weeks rest & recovery after being discharged. He isn't all the things he was accused of being, lazy, difficult, a faker of illnesses, he is just different, university have given him so much support, they have seen the potential in him & as far as I'm concerned, every day he succeeds & everything he has done to prove them wrong makes a giant middle fingered salute to all the people who didn't care & didn't want to help & protect him. School is all about bums on seats, it is no longer about seeing each child as an individual & doing what is needed to bring out the best in them, supporting & nurturing them, the badly behaved kids should all be shipped out, no second, third & fourth chances, send them somewhere run along the lines of a Youth Training Centre where they have to earn privileges when they learn how to behave. School staff have to start looking further than the attendance register & turning out little robots who can pass exams, there are so many children who are square pegs trying to be forced into round holes, who with nurture, care & different learning environments will attain just as much if not more than the kids who are placed in what is only an exam passing factory.

Did you really need to use ChatGPT to write a post on such an anodyne topic?

I think the official DFE guidance says to not do 100% attendance awards. They don't work - if a child has a persistent absence issue then an award won't help. I'm a secondary governor and absence is our number 1 issue- there are a wide range of reasons for that but in general we're an inclusive, non punitive school. It got much worse over covid and we haven't recovered- and actually this is a global issue. Loads of countries report the same; partly it's due to governments breaking the social contract on schooling with parents. It mattered that schools were first to close and last to open.

It's a massive issue for teachers. The curriculum is so packed. Say one week you're teaching long division. Maybe you have 2 or 3 kids who are off some of the days because they are actually ill. You've got 3 more out because they've done a mid week holiday and another 2 who have complicated home lives and don't get to school for that week.

You still need all of those children to be able to do long division. The head expects it, their parents expect it. You don't have a TA. How are you going to catch them up? Multiply that by every week and every subject and you see why it's an issue.

They’re the ones with unstable home lives, whose families might be struggling with poverty or mental health.

Exactly the kids that would benefit from a kind, stable and nurturing environment with routine then? Get them into school.

And one of the other things that has happened since academisation is that education welfare officers - essentially school social workers- have been massively cut because academies stopped buying them in from the LA. Some did supply their own, some didn't, but even then they were not always properly linked into LA services. Schools that aren't academies also now have a much reduced service as a result, and a lot of the engagement activities that used to happen in the 90s have totally gone. Schools haven't had someone helping them look at their data and strategise or doing direct work with families.

DFE have had to reverse ferret and put attendance consultants into LAs but they still don't do the direct family work and early help.

Can you link to info on other countries?
England stats on school attainment are good -maybe it’s attendance

My DD secondary are very direct about why they want children in. More time in school equals better results in gcse. Forget the actual statistics.

My DD has SEN and every now and then she has a day off to recharge her batteries, much better then her being present at school and probably falling out with her friends cos she can’t cope.

The UNESCO report gives top level data on attendance, you need to scroll to the end for the data tables. It's only Out of School and completion rates though.

https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000391406/PDF/391406eng.pdf.multi

And here's a short article from Finland, that beacon of social inclusion:
hyplusglobal.fi/blog/2024/10/10/school-absences-are-a-serious-challenge-that-demand-everyones-attention/

Exactly. My son had chickenpox this year. Only needed three days off school as his spots came out on a Saturday and were all crusted over by the end of Wednesday. We weren’t asked for any proof or medical evidence as the teacher could see the remaining fading spots (I assume also because he had a 100% attendance record until that point and it was going round the class so others had been off too).

No-one is saying to send your child to school with chickenpox. However, if you have taken an unauthorised holiday and allowed your child several duvet days through the year then yes, time off for chickenpox may push you into the “low attendance” category. It’s the other absences the parent needs to address, not the chickenpox.

The school I work in has taken a much more aggressive focus on attendance using three main strands. Positive support and early addressing of barriers whether SEN, bullying or need for nurture etc. Praise for positive behaviour and a focus on why attendance matters. Letters and calls and visits to families at all levels of absence with fines issued promptly online with LEA.

The result is significant improvement. The students with the worse attendance are the PP students, the in year transfers and managed move students, the looked after or CIN, the SEN and the biggest reason to care is that our attainment data runs directly inline with attendance data. Every dip of 5% = reduced attainment.

There is other outcome data that suggests the value of good attendance - the poorest attenders are less likely to remain in education or training, are more likely to be involved with SS, the police and county lines etc. The letters are generated by a model that might not work for your child.

Ironically the focus is one of the issues driving some students to home ed as parents dislike the intrusion (the bigger motivators are calls in for meetings and behaviour sanctions) and this disproportionately affects the most vulnerable cohorts. Presuming our area is statistically similar to the UK then this presents a new challenge for society as the previous home edder profile changes from liberal alternative or nurture/SEN/unmet SEN needs (also a huge driver in increased HE) to include socially excluded families with ‘unschooling’ just meaning neglect. It’s a complicated picture.

One of my children had poor attendance and I could say it didn’t matter as he still did well but it will have reduced his grades - there were much bigger concerns and I doubt I even read the standardised letters. One has had hospital visits that mean he will never be part of the good attendance club - he is able to understand it’s a bit unfair but still purposeful and not personal,

Surely its not the 30 out of 100 parents? The 30% that think school is obligatory are correct though, its the other 70 that dont think so, that are wrong.

@AndofGreenGables I think where attendance has dipped below 92%, schools are obliged to do something about it. It’s also correct about which dc are less likely to have good attendance and the barriers to attendance is what matters. This is about persistent absence, not an absence for a holiday once in 3 years. It takes a lot of work from schools though to raise attendance but schools that do have a consistent approach and are willing to have a constructive dialogue with parents.

How, exactly??? That is the crux of the issue. Of course these children need to be in school, but how on earth does excluding them from a party help?

How do you 'get them into school'?? The teachers pick them up in the morning themselves? They cure them of illness and miraculously they're healed? Adopt the children perhaps to give them a more stable home life?

What are your suggestions?

@Longestgiraffe Actually yes - I’ve heard of dc being collected. We used to have welfare officers doing this! However it’s everyone trying to help the chaotic families but too many think school is optional and don’t know how to parent.

Agreed, always the same kids who are late at my children’s school. The catchment of the school is such that the vast majority are no more than ten minutes’ walk away. Just get up earlier!

And the obsession with attendance at all costs means children get sent in when they are ill and end up making other children ill.

Quite! This driving down the attendance rate as more kids (and possibly teachers) are absent with whatever bug they've brought in.