3 Ways Schools Can Reduce Persistent Absenteeism
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Are your attendance strategies working, or are your pupils slipping through the cracks?
Persistent absenteeism is rising across UK schools with more pupils missing more days at school post-pandemic. Learn how Attend can automate and personalise communication to significantly reduce absenteeism and common biases and barriers to attendance.
Managing attendance is a growing burden on teachers, leaders and admin staff. Particularly chasing unauthorised absences, or teachers having to re-teach material for those who have missed lessons can cause lots of frustration and reduce staff morale. This is a significant task for school leaders to manage.
Schools are under increasing government pressure to improve attendance, particularly as the Department for Education (DfE) introduces new 10-week rolling attendance expectations. But how can teachers and leaders manage this without adding to their already overloaded schedules?
Managing attendance impacts on everyone in the school community.
The software solution Attend offers a data-driven approach to tackle absenteeism. By automating parent communication and tracking attendance trends in real time, Attend helps schools quickly intervene when attendance drops.
Attend identifies patterns, sends personalised messages to parents, and ensures no pupil’s absence is missed. For school and college leaders, the benefits are clear: more time for teaching and learning, less time spent chasing absences, and improved overall attendance rates.
Three reasons to use Attend
Attend provides automated tools to manage attendance workflows:
- Dashboards: Schools can track trends, filter data by year group or key stage, and pinpoint pupils at risk.
- Absence Watch: Automated alerts reach parents/staff when thresholds are exceeded, ensuring timely interventions.
- Parent Communication: Personalised letters, texts, and emails inform parents about their child’s missed lessons.
For example, if a pupil misses a day due to illness, a pre-set rule can send a message home outlining lessons missed, encouraging a swift return to school. These nudges are powerful – research shows that regular reminders can improve attendance by up to 4 per cent! Teachers can also customise communications for deeper interventions.
This is where Attend stands out. It uses behavioural science to nudge parents with personalised communication, addressing attendance issues before they escalate. Automated messages reduce workload for teachers, while data insights help schools track improvements and adapt strategies in real time.
Why does attendance matter so much?
Studies show that absenteeism has a long-term impact on pupil outcomes, affecting everything from academic performance to social development. The problem has been exacerbated by the pandemic, with more families struggling to return to consistent school routines.
But the issue isn’t just with the pupils who are always absent. Research highlights that parents often underestimate their child’s absences due to biases, or they lack a clear understanding of how much absence is acceptable. This “movable middle” – pupils with moderate but growing absences – represents the group most likely to respond.
Questions for school leaders
- How does your current attendance strategy address the “movable middle”?
- Are you using personalised communication to engage parents about attendance?
- Could automating attendance tracking reduce your workload?
- How often do you analyse attendance data to spot patterns and trends?
- What strategies are in place to ensure that no pupil’s absence is missed?
- Are your attendance letters accessible and parent-friendly?
- How could behavioural science improve your school’s communication with parents?
- Do your current attendance reports offer actionable insights for interventions?
- Are parents aware of how their child’s attendance compares to national averages?
- Could a tool like Attend help your school meet DfE’s 10-week expectations?
Attend parents say they are very much aware that attendance is closely monitored, analysed, and acted upon.
Request a demonstration to see how your school can benefit from automated attendance management. You will be impressed!
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