Tackling truancy: sanctions and support

For the past three years, the government has championed a "tough love" approach to tackling truancy. Fines for parents were increased in September 2012 from £50 to £60. A year later, the length of time parents are given to pay was reduced from 28 to 21 days. After this period, the fine doubles and parents then have just seven more days to pay to avoid being taken to court, where they can face a fine of up to £2,500 or imprisonment.

The government's definition of a persistent absentee was strengthened in October 2011 to cover those who miss 15 per cent of sessions rather than 20 per cent. This group accounts for around half of all unauthorised school absences.

In addition, a crackdown on holiday absences was launched in autumn 2013. Since then, teachers have been forbidden from granting children term-time holiday leave and now term-time leave can only be agreed in "exceptional circumstances".

Much of this ramping up of sanctions stemmed from the 2012 Improving Attendance At School report by the government's expert adviser on behaviour Charlie Taylor. This also included a call to recoup fines from parents' child benefit, which is still under consideration by ministers.

Running alongside tougher sanctions is a focus on support for families with complex needs that make children more likely to miss school through the Troubled Families initiative.

Intensive support

This payment-by-results system began working with families in 2012 and sees councils offer intensive support, which can include parenting classes and help with routines.

The Department for Education insists its approach is working, with a reduction in overall absence across all schools in England and a significant drop in persistent absence in primary schools.

It expects to see further drops in absence rates in figures for the whole 2012/13 school year in primary, secondary and special schools, due out in May.

However, a DfE spokeswoman admitted that "too many children are still missing too many lessons".

The latest school attendance figures suggest the most successful measure to date has been 2011's redefining of persistent truant in official figures, which has put pressure on poorly performing councils to tackle their truancy problems.

Between the autumn and spring terms of the 2010/11 school year and the same period during the 2011/12 school year, the proportion of persistent truants in primary and secondary schools fell from 7.2 to 4.9 per cent.

But over the period covering the roll out of Troubled Families, as well as the increase in fine levels up to the autumn and spring terms of the 2012/13 school year, the truancy figure has remained static.

Karen Hawkins, assistant director of the charity Family Action, says the plateauing of truancy figures indicates fines are proving ineffective. She dismisses them as "a blunt instrument for a complex issue that fails to address why children are not attending school".

However, there is evidence that the Troubled Families scheme could soon reduce the truancy rate. Figures released last October, covering the first 18 months of the scheme, have shown improvement in school attendance and decreases in anti-social behaviour among 20,672 families.

Yet the scheme has its limitations as the vast majority of families of persistent truants are not eligible.

There were 333,850 persistent absentees during the 2011/12 school year, but the Troubled Families scheme plans to help only 120,000 families and truancy is not a factor in all of their cases.

Nick Page, director of children's services in Salford and chair of the Association of Directors of Children's Services educational achievement policy committee, urges councils to only use fines and court action as a "last resort".

He believes the most successful approach for dealing with persistent truancy is to focus on support even if families are not eligible for Troubled Families intervention.

He also urges councils to develop truancy partnerships across schools to share data and pinpoint local trends.

In Salford, such data analysis helped identify a group of families where a common factor was that a parent was either in or had recently left the armed forces. Children had to cope with the absence of a parent and had moved many times throughout their young lives.

Busting the barriers

The council's approach in supporting any family blighted by truancy is to "identify barriers then bust them", says Page.

These can include depression, lack of transport, poverty, unemployment and poor routines. Help in Salford has included offering children free breakfasts and transport to drop off both parents and children at work and school.

"In one family where truancy was an issue, the father had left the army and was out of work," says Page. "We got the dad to come in to school and he is now a volunteer doing fitness and sport, which has engaged his sons to come in."

Family Action's Hawkins also wants more councils to use a "restorative approach" where families, children, schools and police work together through regular "truancy conferences" to develop an effective plan to ensure children attend school.

Hull City Council has used this approach successfully. According to latest figures, the proportion of persistent absentees in the city dropped from 9.1 per cent in the 2010/11 school year to 6.9 per cent in 2011/12.

"We hold the meetings to engage with families," explains Sue Yardley, the council's behaviour and attendance lead. "Once you upset them, they will be less likely to engage. But with restorative meetings, the focus is on getting that conversation with parents right from the start and finding out the reasons for the pupils' absence."

The priority is to show families a direct link between attending school and achieving good grades and better chances in life.

Latest government figures show that of pupils that miss between 10 to 20 per cent of school, only 39 per cent manage to achieve five A* to C GCSEs including English and maths.

Hull also offers support to young carers who are missing lessons, such as identity cards to show to teachers and thereby ensure they do not get detention for not handing in homework or arriving late.

Another approach is to develop alternative lesson plans, with a stronger focus on work experience and key subjects such as maths and English, for secondary school pupils who are failing to engage with the national curriculum.

But Josh Coleman, principal at crime reduction charity Nacro, says too often schools fail to consider this method. He says this failure is creating "ghost exclusions," where pupils are effectively excluding themselves through continuing to truant.

For Yardley at Hull City Council, the key to a successful truancy policy is ensuring all head teachers are signed up to the same strategy, from issuing fines to offering support. "This means that there is a consistency in how truancy is tackled as a child moves from primary to secondary school and avoids confusion," she concludes.

ISLE OF WIGHT: USING DATA TO TARGET TRUANTS

The Isle of Wight Council received a wake up call last year when latest government figures revealed the island had England's worst truancy rate.

Figures for 2011/12 found 8.3 per cent of pupils were persistently absent, missing at least 15 per cent of school time.

But since then, action has been taken and already the island's truancy rate has fallen.

Latest figures for the 2013 autumn term show a two per cent drop in the overall absence rate in secondary schools and a 1.7 per cent drop in primary schools compared to the same term the previous year.

The creation of an attendance steering group, involving head teachers, education welfare officers (EWOs) and health service representatives, to discuss island-wide truancy strategies and "forensically analyse data" is key to this turnaround, says Jackie Boxx, the council's commissioner for alternative provision.

Through this approach, the group found 60 per cent of absences in primary schools were through illness, often when children were well enough to attend school.

A booklet will be sent to all parents this year urging them to think again before keeping their child off school. This includes promoting half-day sickness leave "rather than keeping them off for two to three days", adds Boxx.

She says other factors the group highlighted include "a mindset among some families that maybe doesn't appreciate the link between attendance and achievement". This is to lead to a marketing push "to show that if you attend more, you will achieve more".

Lateness was contributing to the high figures and EWOs are now deployed to schools after registration to talk to pupils who arrive late.

Research among persistent truants has helped develop alternative lesson plans, with a stronger focus on work experience for those failing to engage with the national curriculum. This includes offering courses in marine engineering and other local industries.

"We are encouraging our schools to look at being more creative in their provision," says Boxx.

Top tips

• Head teachers must work together to tackle truancy
• Forensically analyse attendance data
• Target pupils who are late
  
  

TACKLING TRUANCY: THE TASK FOR GOVERNMENT

By Professor Ken Reid, Swansea Metropolitan University

"In order to reduce rates of truancy and persistent school absenteeism, governments in all four UK nations must first recognise schools, local authorities, teachers and caring professionals are already doing an immense amount, and without these strategies and interventions things could soon get a lot worse.

"The causes of school absenteeism and truancy are complex and there is no single solution. Family breakdown is continually on the rise, as is the number of single-parent families. Parental condoned absence is the largest reason for pupils' non-attendance in many schools.

"There is no shortage of pupils at risk. In England, more than 20 per cent of pupils in some schools have special educational or additional learning needs. In Wales, this is close to 35 per cent. In some parts of the country, many new pupils and their families do not speak English as their first language, putting pressure on already scarce resources, especially in areas such as behaviour support.

"There are several key areas the government needs to improve, including pupils' literacy, numeracy and reading ability, particularly in the early years. We need more early intervention to prevent truancy and better re-integration strategies for young people who have already started missing school.

"Stamping out bullying in schools should be another priority with cyber-bullying proving a particular cause for absence among younger teenage girls. We need to look at how staff are trained to recognise and detect initial absenteeism before it reaches the persistent stage, which could mean investing in training for the wide variety of professionals involved.

"Truancy is closely linked with crime, teenage gangs, drugs and alcohol abuse, especially among teenage boys.

"It is also linked with underachievement, low attainment, deprivation, poverty, low self-esteem and neglect, so national strategies and preventative measures must reflect this.

"Truancy and challenging behaviour are both starting much earlier in some schools and we need to understand the reasons for this trend. We also need to improve knowledge and understanding of the link between what is being taught in schools and the national curriculum, and pupils' non-attendance.

"Far too many pupils now state the main reason for absence is being 'bored' in school which, in reality, must equate with poor or ineffective teaching.

"Laws on school attendance and punitive strategies for dealing with truancy do need to be reformed and modernised. The fact there are schools with long-standing high rates of non-attendance is unacceptable. At the same time, governments should do more to challenge parents using much more imaginative approaches like the Family Values Scheme."

Professor Ken Reid, OBE, is deputy vice-chancellor of Swansea Metropolitan University and his most recent books on the subject include Managing School Attendance: Successful Intervention Strategies and An Essential Guide to Improving Attendance in Your School, published by Routledge this year

TRUANCY: KEY STATISTICS

• Half of education welfare officers said truancy rose during the 2012/13 school year
• More than 10,000 parents were convicted for failing to ensure their child attends school in 2012
• Children who attend school regularly are nearly four times more likely to achieve five or more good GCSEs than those who are regularly absent
• Four out of 10 persistent absentees are eligible for free school meals
• 52 per cent of young carers miss lessons due to their caring role
  
  

SUFFOLK: POLICE AND SCHOOLS JOIN FORCES

A strong partnership between schools and police has been a hallmark of action in Suffolk to tackle truancy for a decade.

This includes organising regular town centre truancy sweeps, where children out of school are stopped by education welfare officers (EWO) and police. The sweeps are also designed to send a wider message to pupils across the county and local journalists are invited along.

The most recent sweep in Ipswich in December 2013 resulted in 10 pupils being returned immediately to school. Eight parents, who were with their children at the time, were handed a £60 fixed penalty notice. Those who fail to pay are taken to court.

The council also issues warning letters about legal action to any parents of children who are absent without authorisation. Since September last year, 1,250 letters have been sent.

However, Nigel Shaddick, Suffolk senior education welfare officer, stresses sanctions are not the only tool they use.

Families blighted by complex problems including truancy are referred to Suffolk's Troubled Families initiative called Suffolk Family Focus, which has an EWO attached.

"We do know that for some of our families their attitude to school attendance is ingrained. They need more in-depth work with closer support," says Shaddick.

But progress has been slow. Between the 2010/11 and 2011/12 academic years, there was only a small drop in the proportion of persistent absentees among all pupils, from 5.9 to 5.7 per cent.

"The position in the league tables is certainly not where we want to be," concedes Shaddick. "But we are working across children's services through initiatives like Suffolk Family Focus on this to get those absences down."

A key barrier is fragmentation of education through the academy and free school programmes, which is hindering collaboration and data sharing.

Joint truancy strategies between schools do exist in some areas. "But it only takes one head teacher to say they don't want to do that. Unfortunately, we do not have the clout to get them to change their mind," says Shaddick, who adds that already this year an academy has pulled out of one local partnership.

Top tips

• Undertake high-profile truancy sweeps
• Forge links with the Troubled Families team
• Warn parents about fines and legal action