Focus on attendance may be “making things worse,” psychologist warns

The focus on improving pupil attendance rates in schools may be proving counterproductive, in ramping up anxiety levels and creating extra tensions between children and their parents, it was claimed at the weekend.

Policymakers and schools themselves may also be making things worse, by lowering the age at which children encounter more formality in learning, and through draconian behaviour policies, while a greater focus on pupil wellbeing could improve matters.

These were some key points offered up for debate in a webinar on school attendance hosted on Saturday by the organisation “Rethinking Education”.   

The discussion came at the end of a week in which both the government and Labour had announced fresh plans to address what is being described as a “crisis” in school attendance, with 140,000 children being classed as “severely absent*,” or missing from school at least half of the time.

The detail

Dr Naomi Fisher, a clinical psychologist who often works with children who have struggled with school attendance, told the webinar: “A lot of what is being done in the name of attendance has the ability to make things worse.”