When a child is struggling to come to school, it is important that school and home work together as a genuine team around the child. This will allow us to get to the heart of the issue and provide the appropriate support to enable the child to feel safe and happy attending school.
When the home-school relationship doesn’t work, things can disintegrate into “us and them”, with school and home each viewing each other as the enemy. When it does work, the winner is the child – so here are some ideas to make it work.
Know the child
Put the child right at the heart of things in a positive way, by getting to really know them. Look to their strengths, passions and interests. Learn what makes them tick, not what makes them tick boxes. You could try:
- Starting meetings by sharing positive observations or anecdotes about the child.
- Asking the child questions about a topic that excites them.
- Asking parents to talk to you about their child’s strengths and eccentricities.
Their name isn’t ‘mum’
Learn and use the names of important adults in the life of a child who is struggling to come to school. While the child must sit at the heart of the team, supporting adults need to be seen as more than an extension of their child. You could try:
- Learning to say and spell names even if they are tricky.
- Breaking down barriers by using first names (yours and theirs).
- Asking connecting questions to get to know parents/carers better.
Listen and learn
Parents/carers will bring a wealth of knowledge about their child to the table – sometimes because they have done a lot of research and also because of their experience of living with and caring for their child. Taking time to listen and learn from them has the double benefit of increasing our understanding of the child and also helping to build a positive relationship with parents who will respond well to feeling heard by us. You could try:
- Asking parents what their child is like at home.
- Inviting parents to share their ideas about what is going on and what might help – try first to listen rather than defend, dismiss or fix.
- Enabling deeper, freer conversations by walking side-by-side with a parent as you talk rather than conducting interview-style conversations.
Take tiny steps
Set yourselves up for success by taking tiny steps forward which feel manageable and sustainable. Explore together with the child and their family what support and scaffolding needs to be in place to enable these tiny steps to happen. You could try:
- Identifying realistic expectations about attendance, engagement, and attainment.
- Reflecting and revisiting next steps frequently, evolving your plans as often as needed.
- Using the child’s motivations to direct tiny steps – if Lego club is their motivation, roll with it.
Notice and celebrate successes
Hunt for what is working well and share these successes, no matter how small, with the child and their family. There may be some hard work to do to change the narrative about school which can be pretty negative by this point. Every positive interaction will take you a step closer to a family ready to tell new stories about school. You could try:
- Noticing what is going well and quietly praising the child telling them specifically what you noticed or have been told.
- Picking up the phone to home with good news twice as often as you share bad news.
- Even when meeting to address a problem, starting with what is working well – invite the child to share their stories of success if they feel able to.
When things don’t work, get curious
It won’t be plain sailing all the time and that’s okay. It is especially important at these times that there is no blame and no shame and that we get curious instead of furious. At a time of calm, working with the child and their family to understand what happened, why and what might make a difference next time will help us make steady progress. With the right approach, we can learn a great deal from the problems we overcome. You could try:
- Fostering an atmosphere of openness and honesty which seeks to learn rather than blame.
- “Sorry” is a very powerful word for a child to hear from an adult. If you got things wrong, apologise.
- Seeking first to understand rather than fix when reflecting on moments of challenge. Enable each point of view to be heard and try to understand what happened and why before wondering “what next?”.
Parents are people too
Finally, it is important to remember that parents are people too. By the time you are working closely with a family on attendance, it is likely that there has been some sort of on-going struggle for the child and their family for a significant period of time.
The parent you are meeting is likely to be physically and emotionally exhausted and carrying a huge amount of guilt, shame, anger or anxiety which may colour your first interactions.
Please try to be patient and kind, remembering that if you take steps to nurture a relationship built on safety, trust and connection with parents, together you will be a mighty force for good for the child.
- Dr Pooky Knightsmith is a passionate ambassador for mental health, wellbeing and PSHE. Her work is backed up both by a PhD in child and adolescent mental health and her own lived experience of PTSD, anorexia, self-harm, anxiety and depression. Follow her on Twitter @PookyH, find her previous articles via http://bit.ly/seced-knightsmith or visit www.pookyknightsmith.com
More advice and best practice on this theme
- Article: Emotionally based school avoidance: Five tips. Read here.
- Article: Vulnerable students: The four domains of safety: Read here.
- Article: Ideas for working with hard-to-reach families: Read here.
- Podcast: Boosting secondary school attendance. Listen here.
- Webinar: Responding to emotionally based school avoidance. Watch here.