Best Practice

The ABC of equity in schools: A is for attendance

Attendance Pastoral issues Safeguarding Diversity & Equality Inclusion
In this five-part series, Matt Bromley takes a practical look at what schools can do to avoid exacerbating inequity and disadvantage and to teach and support disadvantaged students. In part two he considers how we can ‘flip the conversation’ on attendance
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In the first part of this five-part series on building equity in education, I set out my ABC of inclusion:

  • A is for attendance.
  • B is for behaviours.
  • C is for community.

The causes of educational disadvantage are complex. The way in which those causes manifest themselves in the classroom are equally complex. Therefore the solutions are complex. There are no silver bullets, no panaceas, no pills which will proffer equity for all. There’s more to building equitable schools than my ABC. But we must start somewhere. And where better to start than with the letter A?

 

A is for attendance

If learners do not attend school, or at least not regularly and on time, then we cannot help them engage with education, learn and make progress, and achieve good outcomes – academically, as well as socially and emotionally – to mitigate their differences and disadvantages.

In our plight to build more equitable schools, therefore, improving attendance must come first.

I don’t need to rehash the figures. We all know that since the Covid-19 pandemic, attendance in schools has plummeted.

In England, the government’s figures show that absence rates spiked after the national lockdowns during which most learners were schooled at home, and rates have remained stubbornly high since, especially at secondary school. Rates of persistent absence (when a learner’s overall absence equates to 10% or more of possible sessions) more than doubled after the pandemic and they too have barely shifted since.

What’s more, the “attendance gap” – the difference in absence rates between disadvantaged learners and their non-disadvantaged peers – which has long been a problem, was stretched during the pandemic, with learners from disadvantaged backgrounds significantly more likely to be both absent and persistently absent than their peers.

In fact, in England, Department for Education data from the last few years (see DfE, 2024 for the latest figures) shows that disadvantaged learners are, on average, more than twice as likely as their non-disadvantaged peers to be persistently absent.

Moreover, whereas persistent absence rates among non-disadvantaged learners have fallen very slightly since the pandemic, persistent absence rates for learners from disadvantaged backgrounds have continued to worsen.

 

SecEd Series: Equity in schools

 

It’s complicated

Attendance is intersectional. Learners with other risk factors, such as living in poverty, having SEN, having high levels of mobility, or coming from certain ethnicities or cultures, are more likely to struggle with their attendance and punctuality. Further, poor attendance is often a flag for another issue, including safeguarding.

A study by the think-tank Public First, published last September (Burtonshaw & Dorrell, 2023), found that there had been a “seismic shift” in parental attitudes to school attendance since Covid – a shift, they say, that requires a monumental multi-service effort to change. They found that it was no longer the case that every day at school was seen to matter – at least from the perspective of some parents.

In my experience of working directly with schools, I think this is due, at least in part, to the fact that parents were reassured that home-schooling during the national lockdowns would not be detrimental to their child’s education. And yet evidence shows us that the opposite was true.

We are still seeing the long shadow of Covid: more secondary students are experiencing mental health problems including anxiety (Montero-Marin et al, 2023), while younger children are struggling with their social and emotional development (Tracey et al, 2022).

Not attending school in-person during the lockdowns should have underlined the importance of school attendance, not undermined it. The first task before us, then, if we are to improve attendance, is to reverse this narrative, to tackle the paradox. Parents need to know that every day counts.

The Public First report also found that there had been a fundamental break-down in the relationship between schools and parents across the socio-economic spectrum.

This, I think, reflects a wider problem: a breaking of the social contract between citizens and the state. Fewer people now trust the state or respect its authority. Given the state of British politics in recent years, perhaps we need not look far to understand why this might be.

Sadly, many parents regard schools as an instrument of state and thus have less trust in and respect for the authority of schools. Indeed, Amanda Spielman, in her final annual report as head of Ofsted (2023), said that “in education we have seen a troubling shift in attitudes since the pandemic”. She added: “The social contract that has long bound parents and schools together has been damaged.”

Public First concluded that school level attendance systems felt increasingly draconian to families, and yet not sufficiently robust or accurate. Likewise, sanctions were seen as both irrelevant and antagonistic across all parent groups.

Certainly I think there is little value in sharing headline statistics with parents. Attendance statistics are often meaningless and certainly do not have the traction we might think.

Further, many parents regard school communications on attendance to be too generic – i.e. not related to their child – and often negative.

Indeed, in my experience, schools do tend to adopt a deficit model, talking of absences and lateness, rather than attendance and punctuality, and focusing on the detrimental impact of missing school, rather than selling the positive benefits of good attendance. Schools need to flip the conversation.

 

Disadvantage and attendance

As mentioned, disadvantaged learners are more than twice as likely to be absent from school. But why? Here is a summary of the five factors that lead to lower attendance among disadvantaged learners:

 

Socio-economic factors: Disadvantaged families often face financial hardship, and this makes it difficult for them to afford transportation, school supplies, and other necessities. This can impact their ability to send their children to school regularly.

Health issues: Limited access to healthcare and a higher prevalence of health issues among disadvantaged communities can result in higher rates of illness among learners. Health problems, in turn, lead to more frequent and more prolonged absences from school.

Unstable homes: Disadvantaged learners often experience unstable home environments due to factors such as housing instability, family conflicts, and poverty. These situations can disrupt a learner’s routines and make consistent attendance much more challenging. Disadvantaged learners might also have limited support from parents and families due to conflicting work schedules, a lack of education themselves, or language barriers. This lack of support can impact a learner’s motivation and ability to attend school regularly.

Transportation issues: In some disadvantaged areas, transportation options might be limited or unreliable. Learners might have difficulty getting to school if they don't have access to reliable transportation.

Family issues: Some disadvantaged learners might have to take on family responsibilities, such as caring for younger siblings or contributing to household income through part-time work. These responsibilities can interfere with regular school attendance. Disadvantaged learners may also experience disengagement from school due to factors like feeling academically behind, not relating to the curriculum, or lacking positive role models.

 

How can we address the attendance gap?

To narrow the attendance gap – that is to say, to break the link between disadvantage and absenteeism – I suggest we adopt two core mantras in our schools.

 

1, Everyday counts

As we have seen, it is no longer the case that every parent regards every day at school as being important. We need to reverse this perception.

We need to convince learners and their families that school is the best place to be, both in terms of being supported and protected, and in terms of learning, making progress, and achieving good outcomes that will open doors to future success.

We need to explain the importance of curriculum sequencing and show how difficult it is to catch up on lost learning.

We need to show learners and families that school is about so much more than an education, vital though this is. We need to talk about the social and emotional development a child is afforded by attending school. And we need to talk about the life-skills acquired at school.

 

2, Attendance is everybody’s business

It is commonly accepted that safeguarding is everybody’s business, but attendance should also be of concern to everyone working in school, not least because it is so inextricably linked to safeguarding.

Everyone in school has a part to play in promoting the benefits of good attendance and punctuality, as well as being alert to learner absences and lateness.

All staff need to know the contents of the school’s attendance policy and need to know what part they are expected to play in translating that policy into practice.

All staff need training on the causes of absenteeism and on how to have sensitive conversations around attendance and punctuality.

Those staff responsible for taking registers need training on how to use the system, including which codes to use and when, and how to follow-up on any unexplained absences.

Staff who are responsible for analysing attendance data – including identifying patterns and trends – need the skills to do so, and those with specific responsibilities around attendance improvement efforts and parental engagement need the skills necessary to undertake these duties effectively.

In short, all staff need to know that attendance is part of their job description and there needs to be a planned programme of professional development in place to ensure that all staff can dispense their duties effectively.

 

Flip the conversation

Next, I suggest we flip the conversation and promote the benefits of good attendance. In practice, this means avoiding the deficit model approach whereby we talk about absences and lateness and share headline attendance statistics which are often meaningless to parents.

For example, to us 85% attendance is a real cause for concern, but to many parents it is not. After all, if we got 85% in a test, we’d probably pass. The headlines don’t have the traction we might think.

Nor does talking about the adverse impact of absences or threatening sanctions. Rather, we should talk positively about the significant advantages afforded to learners who do attend regularly. And there are many advantages:

  • Better progress.
  • Improved outcomes.
  • Progression to further and higher education.
  • Better job prospects.
  • Higher earnings.
  • Improved health and wellbeing.

 

Next time

In part three of this series, now published, I will explore this in more detail and share a three-pronged approach to tackling the attendance gap.

  • Matt Bromley is an education journalist, author, and advisor with 25 years’ experience in teaching and leadership including as a secondary school headteacher. He remains a practising teacher. Matt is the author of numerous books on education and co-host of the award-winning SecEd Podcast. Find him on X @mj_bromley. Read his previous articles for SecEd via www.sec-ed.co.uk/authors/matt-bromley  

 

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