School Attendance – a new alliance and CPD for staff
School attendance has become a central focus over the course of the pandemic, with children and young people having had a very disrupted two years. To support staff wanting to know more about the complex issues often associated with school attendance, the Youth Resilience Unit has a free webinar entitled ’School refusal: how teachers can offer support’ taking place on Wednesday 19th January at 4pm. Professor Jennifer Lau and Professor Dennis Ougrin, from Queen Mary University of London, will talk about the science of underlying causes and barriers to school attendance, explore evidence-based interventions for school avoidance in pupils of all ages, and discuss how teachers should best support these children and young people.
The Education Secretary has also announced that he has formed a new attendance alliance to support settings to employ best practice in improving attendance within their day-to-day work. This comes after recent trends in persistent absence levels have increased from 15% in 2019 to 16.3% in secondary schools in autumn 2020, not including non-attendance relating to Covid-specific circumstances. Although Covid has had a huge impact on attendance, this is outside of the scope of the work of the alliance and they will be concentrating on the wider underlying causes of children not being in school.
The alliance members include Ofsted Chief Inspector Amanda Spielman, Children’s Commissioner Dame Rachel De Souza and Chief Social Worker Isabelle Trowler, alongside leaders working within schools, the police, mental health and family charity representatives. They have pledged to provide support to break down any barriers to children and young people being in school for every possible day and have reached out to all those who engage with children to work together. The alliance has brought together a range of expertise across the full spectrum of issues that are factors in school attendance such as bullying, anxiety, mental health and children’s experiences outside of school.
Education Secretary, Nadhim Zahawi, said:
“Where children aren’t in school without good reason or don’t want to be in school something has gone substantially wrong and needs fixing. This new attendance alliance includes the people with the power to do just that.
They will be working over the coming months to make sure everyone working on the ground with children, as a teacher, football coach, mental health worker or in any other role, has the tools and resources they need to break down barriers to children attending school.
I will continue to prioritise taking action to make sure children have the opportunity to spend time in class with inspirational teachers and good friends – simply because it is the single most powerful tool at our disposal to make sure every child fulfils their potential.”
Rachel De Souza, Children’s commissioner, presented evidence from the Big Ask survey and asked that those with power to drive change effectively should hear directly from children about their experience. As we await the SEND review, due in the next couple of months, the focus on ensuring adequate support for pupils within school to address these issues will be encouraging.
Square Peg and Not Fine in School are two organisations that provide specific resources and support around children who struggle to attend school
