Is this appropriate?

[DoYouReallyThinkSo]

New school initiative (secondary) to tackle attendance. Every single member of staff will be allocated a (probably vulnerable/disadvantaged) student with attendance issues to build a relationship with them/home to improve their attendance.

Built into part of the appraisal system (although pay award not impacted).

Expectation is weekly chats with the allocated students. Talk about lessons they have liked/clubs they have joined. Advocate for them. Help with organisation (lesson resources etc).

Whilst I see this is an appropriate thing for teaching/TA staff to be doing (though part of me thinks this is surely a Form Tutor's role) is this appropriate for ALL staff?

And when I say all staff, it is ALL staff. The caretaker, finance officer, exams officer, cleaning supervisor, School Business Manager, PA to Head, 2 day a week Science Technician, IT Support technician....everyone will be allocated a student and be expected, as part of their appraisal, to build said relationship.

What are your views? Is it appropriate? Would it work? How would you feel as a parent if your child was allocated to the catering manager? As an experienced pastoral lead what are the issues you could see happening?

I do not mind saying I think the idea is bonkers - I am just trying to see if I may be being shortsighted. Or trying to clarify my thoughts in arguing against the policy.

No! If one of my children were allocated a random member of staff who is not experienced in this line of work, I'd be absolutely raging.

Crazy for so many reasons. The caretaker?

It's not inappropriate but I dont think it will be very effective!
We did a similar "mentor" scheme with GCSE students who were falling behind for whatever reason. However it was optional (for staff) and the students were paired with someone who could help them. For example, those with very difficult situations, special needs etc. had someone from SLT or SN as their mentor. All the other students were mentored by someone who taught them at least once a week.

Absolutely stupid idea. How is that going to help encourage disadvantaged/vulnerable children to attend school? They may need support but a caretaker or PA is not going to be able to offer it to them. What they need is a councillor or support worker who can offer practical support and who is qualified to help them attend school despite their challenges.

Also I cant help but notice you said everyone but the cynic in me suspects this probably doesn't include the headteacher.

Also it's not fair to build this into appraisal unless there is some way to record whether the student attends the "relationship building" sessions. If you're paired with a kid who never turns up, it's not fair to then be negatively appraised for not building a relationship with them! As with so many things in teaching, this isn't all down to the staff

Don't like the idea. Not because of being paired up with the cleaner or dinner lady etc but because it's typical of SLT passing responsibility onto other (lesser paid) staff in order to tick a box.

Didn't think I was being shortsighted. It is a very strange thing to have done.

Does anyone know, can I refuse to do it? My main reasoning is that I think at best me mentoring a student would do zero good (I am totally back office so zero relationships with students at all). I worry that actually for the self-esteem of the student/parent it would actually do more harm than good. And I have zero educational background/knowledge and there is zero training being offered.

You shouldn't be asked to do something in your job that you are not adequately trained to do or offered appropriate training for. That's very poor management practice and how can it be linked to your formal job appraisal and properly measured? Chances are that the majority of students won't willingly engage with it anyway.
Your HT sounds utterly incompetent.

Honestly it's just a box ticking job so your HT can say 'ooooh look at me and my big idea!' (Then probably attendance rates go up coincidentally and he will share his idea with other schools whose poor staff have to do this too)

I would group together with the non teaching staff and raise it together or contact your union.

I am totally back office so zero relationships with students at all

So you have no relationship with students and have been employed to work in the back office and yet now as part of your appraisal targets you are being judged on how well you work with a despondent child who often misses school. Here's a mad idea why don't they just appraise you on the job you are actually being paid to do? Do you have a union, I'd be getting in ouch and encouraging others to do the same this is utter madness!!!!

Oh I know it is a tick box exercise.

I am just really wtf about it all. For three main reasons -
Firstly the total wtf that such a badly thought out decision has been made!
Secondly the possible impact on the students - if nothing else from the appalling message it may give some of them if they are given me/back office staff as their contact point.

And thirdly, (sad to admit) I think I have spent 30 years working and never been given an appraisal target I have not gone out and met. And tried to exceed. This - I am think I going to refuse to do it and tbh I'll leave if they push it. Not for my sake (v professional previous career, more than capable with student focused training and have pretty good soft skills) - but for the principle of how wrong it is.

Are they doing more for a 'friendly face' for the student rather than any professional advice/support maybe? I agree it is bizarre.

@Russell19 Possibly? But even then how could I (random from the office) be considered a friendly face?

I am very friendly - didn't want to make ^^ seem like I am some dragon. And I am smiley and kind and polite the very few interactions I have with the students. But I just cannot see why HT thought this was a viable option.

It is not as though it is difficult to separate school staff into "front" and "back" office. TAs, pastoral, teachers are front office. The rest of us are not. Yes we have Safeguarding training, but it is not enough to equip us to "build a relationship" with a student.

Bonkers. And yes, the possibility of doing more harm than good is a real risk.

I can sort of see the benefit of perhaps getting a vulnerable student who is interested in cooking to spend maybe one afternoon a week with the catering manager as work experience. In fact, one of my kids did spend some time with our site team because he was very good at practical work but really struggled academically, so it build his self confidence a bit. That sort of arrangement might build a relationship for the better.

But the idea of everyone in a school being randomly allocated to a student is a bit odd. I'd be querying it.

Sounds bonkers and inappropriate. Your IT guy/finance manager didn’t sign up for a pastoral role and it won’t be part of their job description so they are within their rights to refuse.

Didn’t they try something like this in Scotland and it fell apart due to GDPR?

Interestingly, it was our caretaker who built a relationship with one of the hardest to reach children in school. The boy’s attendance improved dramatically as he was coming in to school early to help out with jobs!

Presumably the caretaker wasn’t directed to do it and it didn’t form part of his performance management.

I would definitely get out your job description.

Sometimes children in Primary school get on well with a midday supervisor as they come from the local community, maybe speak in the same way, but this comes naturally not through being allocated.

Do the non-teaching staff get paid for extra time to see these children?

This should absolutely be voluntary and training should be offered. It is an obvious situation where a disclosure of abuse etc could be made. You need to protect yourself too. The media would have a field day with this too.

Very strange idea.

How on earth are there enough students with attendance issues to allocate one to every member of staff?! That’s mind boggling. We have around 5 persistent absentees in a year group. Perhaps 30-40 overall. We have well over 100 members of staff. This sounds like a recipe for disaster and I can’t even see how it would ever be necessary.

A primary school I once worked in talked about doing this. The idea was that you would go out of your way to say hello to 'your' child each day have a chat with them every so often and get to know what they liked/ disliked, who their friends were and what life was like at home. We all thought it was a peculiar idea and that the children would find it strange for an adult, who's not their teacher and who they hardly know, to suddenly taking an interest in their life. Idea was abandoned.