Collaboration in and out of school is the only way to tackle persistent truancy
Charlie Taylor, the Government’s adviser on behaviour recently published his report on improving attendance in schools. The report proposes, among other things, allowing headteachers to impose fines of up to £60 on parents they consider to be allowing pupils to miss school without reason. Parents who fail to pay may find that figure doubled and docked from their child benefits.
The report recognises the link between poor attendance at school and lower academic achievement, and how reducing truancy can improve the life chances of children. It also recommends lowering the threshold at which children are classified as persistently absent to include those who miss more than 15 per cent of their schooling, to ensure that problems are identified at an earlier stage.
While this is all good news, we need to go far beyond financial measures to have a real impact on truancy levels.
The review shows that for the biggest group of children missing school, patterns of non-attendance are established early in the school career. The children come from families where parents do not value education and often missed school themselves. There should therefore be greater emphasis on attendance in primary schools and steps should be taken to ensure that a range of support is offered to families before any legal action is taken. This involves working with parents to change their attitudes. Much good practice is outlined in the Taylor report.
In some cases, poor attendance can be one sign of much deeper and more complex needs. Underlying issues can include children having caring responsibilities, domestic violence, mental health problems and substance abuse issues within the family.
For the very small minority of families where children are persistently absent, the school needs to engage in an intensive whole-family approach to tackle such issues. To be successful, intervention is needed at all levels – with the pupils concerned and their families, across the school and outside the school gate.
Truants do not function in isolation
Findings show that intensive whole-family support can have a range of positive outcomes, including improved school attendance and a reduction in antisocial behaviour and child protection issues. It is particularly effective at sustaining change because it takes place at a systemic level and all family members share in the solution.
A whole-family approach requires local agencies and service providers to come together as a single multi-skilled, multi-disciplinary workforce with a plan for coordinated action – with schools, parents, police, voluntary and community groups all working together.
Information sharing is key, though it is currently a problem in many areas. Local leaders need to bring together agencies to design a system of data collection around the family that enables important information to be collected and shared as quickly, effectively and safely as possible.
There are links to be made with the Prime Minister’s Troubled Families initiative, with its stated intention of ensuring that 120,000 troubled families are turned around by the end of this Parliament. The financial framework for a payment by results scheme talks about payments being made to areas for reducing anti-social behaviour and crime, improving school attendance and getting adults into work.
All this is a big step in the right direction. Non-attendance should be seen, not as a stand-alone issue, taken out of context, but as a sign that combined agencies and service-providers need to use their professional intelligence to find a solution that will help improve the life chances of individual children and their families.
Further information
Wendy Weal is Managing Director of Interface Associates, a social enterprise working with local authorities to improve services for vulnerable families:
www.interfaceassociates.co.uk
