Warren Carratt, CEO, Nexus Multi-Academy Trust, Paul van Walwyk, Director for Central Services and Schools, Eden Academy Trust
Issues
When the attendance of a special school pupil is poor or disrupted, the reasons behind this can often be complex – an understanding of these reasons is therefore essential. Like all behaviours, a lack of awareness of the root cause or causes does not mean that they do not exist, and supportive, proactive engagement with parents/carers to find out what the issues are can create the opportunity for a co-produced solution.
For some pupils their desire to attend school can be undermined by parental challenges such as poor mental health, addiction, domestic abuse or housing. Additionally, some parents of very vulnerable or unwell children may not feel that attending school is a priority or that it is a safe place for them to be. Often, parental anxiety around the wellbeing of their child is at the heart of attendance issues. Again, the intervention of family workers or the facilitation of parent groups who can peer support those in need can be an effective intervention, to help rebuild confidence and resilience.
School transport is also a complex issue for special school pupils. Pressure on council budgets can often mean transport is commissioned at the lowest possible cost, rather than looking holistically at best value and, often, pupil needs are not a factor in who is awarded a contract. A further complication that stems from this is that, because of the low cost imperative, transport offers little or no flexibility for families to respond to medical appointments. When a child has a medical appointment in the morning and where a parent cannot drive, there is often no mechanism for transport to support their return to school, leading to a whole day lost rather than a part of the day. Some health providers can offer clinics in schools, but this is not widely practiced and often specialist health services are regional, which increases travel time and therefore further impedes attendance.
The whole school measure of attendance in a quantitative percentage form is not always a helpful indicator for special schools. With lower numbers on roll compared to the majority of mainstream schools, there is a higher statistical value for each pupil which can therefore create a misleading picture regarding attendance. In any attempt to improve attendance, there needs to be recognition of any improvement within a monitoring system (for example, where a pupil might start attending for part of the week or online). This is not lowering expectations, it is acknowledging that with complex issues for non-attendance, small steps of improvement are necessary and important. Many special schools provide more granular and analytical data to governors and trustees to take out unavoidable absences, such as medical appointments, in order to provide a more accurate and contextual view of attendance.
As a potential mechanism for engagement and as a means to accessing education, it can be worth exploring what is meant by "attending school”. With the use of virtual digital platforms throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, education can be viably provided online. However, this concept of attending school and what online attendance means – combined with the perspective of Ofsted on offsite education - appears to be a polarising issue.
It could be argued that not being physically in school is not accessing formal education and that accessing online education is therefore not being ‘at school’. Alternatively, it may also be presented that by using a digital platform to access education the pupil is still engaged in a form of formal education, albeit in a digital setting.
In all of these cases, a trusted, open working relationship built up between the school and the family can be highly effective in addressing some of these issues. Importantly, in exploring alternative attendance solutions – particularly those that include online education, safeguarding of pupils is paramount and additional consideration would need to be given to this to ensure pupils are safe. Responding to attendance issues with fines should be an absolute last resort and is not necessarily helpful or effective when the root causes of a child’s non-attendance is not understood.
Potential solutions
The relationship between the school and the family is key to both understanding and resolving attendance issues. Part of this work is about helping to establish the importance and value of education. Special schools should have a clear definition of what is and isn’t authorised attendance, as all schools have, and whilst families may find this uncomfortable it is about demonstrating high expectations for attendance.
What has been highly effective at improving attendance is the use of family workers attached to schools who know the local context and can build up trust and credibility with families. This can lead to strong, effective relationships where families will respond to interventions often in a more positive way than interventions that might be suggested by social care agencies. These family workers can monitor attendance in a way that recognises trends and subsequently plan early interventions, thus potentially avoiding increasing difficulties, not only in school, but also in relation to increased mental health needs or social care requirements.
The issue of attending school virtually, on a temporary basis, needs to be clarified in a child’s Education, Health and Care Plan (EHCP) so that the boundary of what is and is not being ‘at school’ is subject to multi agency agreement and review. For many working people, they no longer attend their physical work place, but work remotely, these people would very much argue, that despite not attending their physical work environment, they are ‘at work’. Work places are increasingly coming to realise that there is a third way, that of a blended approach to interactive/face to face working and further consideration of this approach within a school perspective may be worthy of further exploration, especially for those whose mental health is causing them to be identified as school refusers and particularly because we are preparing children for the real world.
This issue of ‘school refusal’ is a complex issue in itself, further hindered by negative labelling and requires a significant amount of additional consideration. Having personalised "access” arrangements specified in an EHCP which then are reflected in a credible attendance record for a child gives schools a safeguard against being perceived as "manipulating” attendance data, as the Code of Practice places a legal duty to personalise provision to best meet need. This should be subject to routine termly review, as having a record that a pupil place is commissioned with a specific configuration should assure all parties that schools are safeguarding pupils by acting responsibly and lawfully.
It can be argued that there is no substitute for direct face to face teaching, but a personalised blended learning approach, using a digital learning element, as opposed to not attending school is a measurable improvement, if properly agreed with LA commissioners and regulated to prevent misuse. This could support the transition of some pupils back to full time face to face teaching.
Further considerations
- The role of family support workers attached to and/or employed by special schools should be recognised and professionalised to increase attendance through the development of greater family engagement. This may require additional funding to facilitate this.
- Incremental improvements in attendance should be recognised as well as definitive attendance figures.
- In some parts of the country, the Annual Review process sometimes involves a closely monitored and focussed approach to blended on-line/face to learning to support pupils who are not attending a school but will engage in learning. However, this is not used everywhere or consistently and should be considered more regularly where appropriate, and promoted by the DfE as a means of schools meeting the Code of Practice requirements.
- School Transport should be commissioned on a best value framework to provide additional training for transport providers in the support and management of pupils that use their service.
- Health professionals in children’s medical services should be encouraged to hold more multi-element clinics for children with complex needs to reduce the number of hospital or medical attendances in school hours, and this should be made more explicit in the Code of Practice.
- A research project on identifying best practice in raising attendance in special schools should be undertaken by the Education Endowment Foundation to support the further development of evidence based practice both within special schools and potentially to the wider school system.
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