When thinking about the attendance challenge, I often return to the question: what do students like most about school?
Our student surveys are remarkably consistent: the part of the school day students value above everything else is the time they spend connecting with their friends during breaks. As teachers, we might wince at that. What about the six hours of carefully crafted learning experiences we work so hard to provide? Surely that's what draws students in?
But the truth is, their answer makes perfect sense.
Our inclusion model is built on the belief that children thrive when they feel safe, successful, and connected. All three of these conditions are deeply interwoven into children's friendships. So, it isn't surprising that students feel a powerful pull toward the unstructured time where those needs are freely met, compared to the more formal structures of classroom learning.
A radical ambition
This insight poses an important challenge to us as educators: What would the rest of the school day need to look like for students to experience the same sense of safety, success, and connection that they feel during breaktime?
And more than that: Is this the real question we should be asking when addressing the attendance challenge?
Our ambition is unapologetically bold: that teenagers should love secondary school as much as they once loved primary school.
Reaching that goal requires more than better lessons; it requires a deliberate redesign of how classrooms feel, function, and include.
Engagement as an experience to design for
Students participate when they feel safe. They think deeply when routines are predictable and cognitive load is reduced. They contribute more freely to environments where teachers build trust and a culture of high engagement. They take risks when success feels genuinely possible. They speak when their voice feels valued.
Engagement, then, is not something to push students toward but something to design for. It is a proxy for the deeper conditions of safety, success, and connection. These conditions do not appear through enthusiasm or charisma alone - they are engineered through deliberate habits and routines.
This is where our St Luke's Habits of Excellence come in - partly adapted from the work of Pritesh Raichura and inspired by a visit to Ark Soane. These habits are not gimmicks or add‑ons; they are the architecture through which we are redesigning the classroom experience. The Habits of Engagement create an atmosphere where participation is the default, not an optional extra.
Habits that make engagement inevitable
Take choral response. At first glance it seems simple - a class responding together to a teacher's cue. But its impact is profound. It builds the foundations of oracy, strengthens vocabulary, and generates a sense of collective momentum. Every student, not just the confident few, gets to feel the rhythm of success.
Or consider cold call. Rather than relying on volunteers - the same hands, the same voices - we create a norm where every student knows they may be invited to share their thinking. Teachers ensure that the pitch of these allows for the feeling of success, as opposed to 'catching students out'.
Then there are mini whiteboards, a staple of our routines and formative assessment, allowing teachers to provide whole class and individualised feedback in the moment.
Individually, each habit serves its own purpose. Together, they form a coherent system that ensures students feel engaged, connected, and successful - every lesson, every day. They create the kind of intentional, purposeful classroom atmosphere that teenagers rarely experience by accident. They anchor students in the learning process not through pressure or novelty, but through clarity, predictability, and connection.
Inclusion, not addition
Crucially, this work is not separate from our inclusion model - it is our inclusion model. Students feeling safe, successful, connected. These aren't abstract aspirations. They are the daily conditions our habits create.
Our hypothesis is that when students consistently experience lessons like this, something deeper shifts. Engagement is no longer conditional, it is default. School becomes somewhere they feel drawn to, not pushed into. Hence the link to attendance.
The question that changes everything
Reframing the question opens new possibilities. Instead of asking: "How can we get students to participate more?" , we ask: "How can we create classrooms that students want to participate in?"
In that shift lies the potential for something genuinely transformative - not just better lessons, but better experiences. Not just improved engagement, but stronger connection. Not just higher attendance, but a school culture young people love belonging to.
- Harrison Littler is Headteacher of St Luke's Church of England School, part of the Ted Wragg Trust
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