governors / teachers...attendance help required. please

[twinklytoes]

we've just had ofsted in. report not official yet but we'll be getting a notice to improve.

without doubt one of the areas will be attendance. very rarely hit 95% :(

we've tried reward schemes; free breakfast club; fun days etc but still don't hit target. looks like we're heading towards actually fining families now.

any other ideas of what we could try? we've been tackling attendance for years now, (at least the four I've been a governor) and feels like we've run out of ideas between us.

I don't know the specifics about ofsted inspections but I think that as governors you should be worrying about the other stuff. Surely you don't have a notice to improve solely because of not hitting 95%?

I would be concerned if I was a parent at your school. Children are absent for many reasons like illness. Do you really want parents to bring in children who are ill?

there are other issues but attendance is a biggy.

this isn't illness. there's a core 20% of students who just don't turn up at 845. improvement officers in place; parents regularly visited etc.

Have you established why the children don't attend? What do the parents say and what have the improvement officers been doing?

issues in nursery/ reception whereby parents think children don't need to attend everyday until they are five. therefore, if pfb and a new baby at home, no sleep, keep pfb at home is one common example. school started issuing improvment notices or lose place...had some effect but then entry numbers to nursery went down this year.

further up the school...generally parents choosing to not get their child to school and have a layin. (high unemployment area).

some persistent families with lots of children through school year groups. all off at same time.

plotted over the last four years and clearly shows that early intervention is required to set behaviour.

we've gained a full time attendance officer this year. she is making some head way with building relationships etc but this hasn't transformed to increasing numbers.

how about a walking bus to school scheme?

info here

Surely Ofsted don't include nursery attendance?

It sounds like the school I am a governor of, this year we are just below the target but its touch and go. We are using a combination of carrot and stick, the EWO officer is the "stick" whilst we work on the kids with carrots. We have found whole class rewards work best - weekly best performing class gets x reward, termly class get a non uniform day and a free bacon sandwich at break. Yearly class gets a trip. Relies heavily on peer pressure and is more successful with older year groups - possibly because they are able to get themselves up and out to school without a parent.

We still use pupil performance too, certificates each term for hitting 95% and prizes for 100%. Judging by the numbers getting certificates last week its working.

And I would also say that every school my DCs have been to has been incapable of recording attendance properly anyway, these schools all thus shooting themselves in the foot.

Until the term after children turn five absences aren't reported to the local education authority and don't count towards attendance rates (and therefore Ofsted can't grade the school on them).

I think a school that lets four year olds miss days when they're tired is a good school:a school that cares more about the childrens well being than it does about ticking boxes. I can see truanting out of laziness on the parents part is a different matter.

What we do is first thing every morning the welfare officer checks if the kids with attendance problems are in.

If they're not she rings home and asks if they can come in.

If the parent says they can't bring them in the HT and the welfare officer go round to the house and take them to school.

Most families don't require many visits from the HT before they get the idea.

Attendance is the HTs and welfare officers top priority. by being on to it first thing every morning, by spending a lot of time on it, we only have a few families who still have attendance problems.

We don't do any attendance awards or certificates or bribes. We do work very hard on making school a place kids want to come to. Because lessons are interesting and pastoral support is good.

By and large our kids want to come to school.

I don't know the specifics about ofsted inspections but I think that as governors you should be worrying about the other stuff. Surely you don't have a notice to improve solely because of not hitting 95%?

If that's what they're given as a target, then they absolutely have to act upon it. It's the most difficult one because a lot if it is outside the school's control, however hard they try.

Is your free breakfast club invite only, OP - just for targeted children you need to be in school on time? Ours is, and they have special reading books that are especially for them, and beanbags, etc. It's a lovely atmosphere now, and turned those children's attendance around.

We have had to send taxi to family with worst record, no idea how we fund it

My DC school, where I am a governor, has worked really hard on this and still only gained satisfactory for attendance (and even then only if non-compulsory school age and Travellers excluded).

They have done the following;
Carrots;

• Prizes and certificates for 100% attendance each term for individual children.
• Each class gets a 'shield' for each week they have 95% + attendance in Friday assembly, the class with the most at the end of term earns a 'Golden Ticket' which they can use to have a class fun day with...these have included a cinema day where the children watched films and had popcorn and sweets in class, and a games day where parents were invited in to play board games with the children.
• Free after school clubs (each teacher is expected to do one after school club), each chiild gets one free club a week.
• Breakfast club, open to all, with free toast and homework help for those that want it.
• Parent open afternoons, and meetings where staff explain what is being covered each term, and look at daily and weekly planning. Parents are becoming aware of exactly how much learning their child will miss by not being in school.

And sticks;

• Daily phone call when child is not in school, if a family is unable to be contacted (they don't answer the phone basically!) then police are requested to do a 'safe and well' check after 3 days. Families in my area don't like police visits...who knows what they may spot in the house so no longer avoid school phone calls.
• Doctors certificate/appointment card/copy of prescription requested for children who have poor attendance for each absence.
• School nurse/family support worker visit persistent absentee families to discuss routine/healthy eating/smoking cessation and offer ongoing parenting support if needed.
• Any holidays booked in term time are refused for children with less than 95% attendance, and therefore are unauthorised and receive a fine.
• Half termly letters are sent to parents of children with less than 95% attendance, detailing exactly how many lessons have been missed.
• The one that has made the biggest difference was teachers explaining at parent evening that if children were too poorly for school they should be at home, in bed for the day and that if they were seen by school staff outside of home eg.shopping, playing in the street, then the absence would be unauthorised and a fine would be the result. It has become either too inconvenient/expensive to not take children to school as you will be stuck in the house all day.

Your school sounds alot like ours, deprived area, families known to other agencies.

We do a read and feed scheme where children on free dinners also get free breackfast and help with reading/homework.

One of the people in the office rings the parents everytime the child not at school and in doing so has built up a good relationship with them. Which we have found this more helpful then EWO who does very little with our school.

In doing this and working closely we these families in the last 2 years we have got our attendance from 92% to 95.5%.

Our school has gone from 92% to 97% over the last 18 months following the appointment of a new head - he's made a huge difference in all sorts of ways, but for attendance:

• The attendance officer has picked one or two families at a time to work with, rather than looking at the problems as a whole. Got to the bottom of their issues and built strong relationships with the adults and children, then moved on to the next one once that problem resolved. Attendance more or less done now, so now she's going to look at lateness, which is still very bad.

-In one extreme case where the child (rather than the parents) was a school refuser, the Deputy head and an LSA went to fetch a child who had locked himself in the bathroom. After that he knew there really was no place to hide.

-Golden time. Every Friday for 30 mins. Used for behavior generally, bad behaviour gets minutes removed. Good behaviour earns credits. Approx 20 different activities are offered in small groups, so limited places for each. Those with the most credits get priority when choosing the activities. Range from tea and cakes with the head (by far the most popular!) to site manager - getting to help the caretaker, hair and make up, different sports, cooking, construction toys, junk modeling

-By far the most effective though has been the whole class reward. Each class has a termly target for their combined credits. Every day that the whole class is in, the class is awarded 20 credits towards their target. If they reach their target a treat will be arranged (usually a choice offered and picked by class vote). DS2's class had a pajama party on Friday afternoon, DS1 a quiz with fizzy drinks and snacks.

We have one boy , who's attendance was very poor, who now comes to the office "to make sure" his class got their credits.

We have one boy , who's attendance was very poor, who now comes to the office "to make sure" his class got their credits.

Brilliant.

thankyou :) there's certainly some ideas there that we haven't yet done.

we have a new head too...only been "official" since december so it's early days but things are changing.

the golden ticket and shield is a subtle change to something in place but I will suggest that one.

also the police...the families wouldn't like that one ;)

I think the HT might be up for doing visits too. the welfare officer is visiting but HT might just help.

Yes, I know Ofsted don't count nursery/pre five attendance but early intervention shapes behaviour and we are talking about families with lots of siblings throughout the school.

1/2termly letters would be good. termly certificates go home but that's it.

Not sure what is said at parents evening...will ask...unfortuantely my children attend on time (and attend breakfast club) and have 100% attendance.

Can't remember who asked but Breakfast Club is open to all and is currently free for all. My dds attend. There are about 50 children that go and approx 10% of the known regular "late gates" children now attend.

I'm also going to ask that the governors audit the recording of attendance just in case there are some discrepancies.

I like the idea of working with 1-2 families at a time - if they have many children that will deal with lots of absences at once and those relationships are an investment for the long term.

I would look at the attendance by year then

1 - Insist that parents ring in each day of absence and initiate first day calling and insist that parents write in to cover absence

2 - Print off the registers for last half term and look at patterns, are they having every Monday off, is it PE day, do they always have days off after a holiday, does the attendance % look poor for a student but then emerges it was due to chicken pox earlier in the year and student has had 1 day off since.

3 -Weekly ask admin to telephone home for missing absence notes (see above) great way in if done in a pleasant manner as parents more likely to divulge any issues. Also parents begin to realise that school is monitoring attendance.

4 - split the attendance into attendance % categories and get to know which students are in each. The idea of this is that you can 'target' groups of students, monitor the severity of letter home eg under 85% EWO action but above 85% a montioring period for improvement. After moitoring period write home again to say improved or not.

5 - Don't focus on the the hardcore 3 or 4 familes that have persistent poor attendance- hand them over to the EWO, as a school aim to try and prevent the student having a day off because they have a headache, or who have woken up late or have a dentist appointment and parents think there is no point sending them in. Better to be late than not in at all - then work on the lates.

6 - After the EWO families then choose the next say 5 and work with these for intense work eg home visits

Sorry this is all 'office' stuff but I feel that Primary schools face a bigger battle with attendance then secondaries as most students cannot get to school without the parent. At least in secondaries (with my experience) if the student wanted to come to school they could get themselves there. Little ones unfortunatley cannot.

Good luck :)

ILoveOnionRings

Sorry this is all 'office' stuff but I feel that Primary schools face a bigger battle with attendance then secondaries

We do for some reason primary school are expected to have 95% plus where secondaries only have a 92% attendance. And these figure from an ofsted inspector who alss does some of our govenor training.

And you only have to look at MN threads to see that attitude towards attendance in primary in vastly different 'He's only in Y4, it's not as if he is doing his GCSEs, ffs', etc, etc.

www.guardian.co.uk/education/2012/apr/03/kinder-way-to-tackle-truancy

"I think we work because we are a cross between a friend, a social worker and a teacher," says Alison.

Sounds expensive.