Truancy penalties - should they be tougher?

I am afraid not all schools are as good as yours,juragran. I had a boy come in one morning looking tired and dishevelled. He told me he and his mother had had to sleep in the bus shelter because his drunken father had thrown them out. I got the canteen to give him something to eat, then took him to the head to ask if he could have a couple of hours in the medical room to rest. The head said to him ' Where is your tie?' I think we were both teaching about the same time - I hope all schools are now as good as yours.

I agree that it is hugely complicated. This was discussed last night on Question Time - everybody agrees that fines are not the answer.

Huge efforts are made by the school to support vulnerable children, both academically and emotionally/psychologically. At the last school I worked at, not only Heads of year, but senior staff- would spend a mountain of time doing this, liaising with parents, staff, and all other agencies involved. Kids with truancy and other problems were mentored on a one to one basis all the time- trying to resolve issues and give the best support possible. If a child stays at home to care for sibblings or a frail parent- should we say, OK, that's fine, a good reason? Or should be try to find a solution for the care, so the child can go back to a normal education, and hopefully a brighter future?

However, the point I am trying to make, is that we owe it to the most vulnerable children to not just let them fall through the net- but have to try and find ways to keep them in school, so that THEY eventually can have more success and eventually be able to go forth. Anybody who says it is easy is of course mistaken.

There may be a few cynical parents who just don't care if their children go to school or not or who take their children out of school in term times for no good reason but the way Government talks it's as if there are lots of such parents.

In most cases there will a good reason why children are absent and I think that there should be more effort put into finding out more about the children and their families to understand why.

Some children slip into undertaking caring responsibilities, unknown to the school or to others, because their disabled or ill parents are struggling to cope with no help. This is increasing as social care budgets are cut, and rather than consider these children as heroes or heroines as the media like to describe them - these are children who are denied a childhood because society chooses to forget them. These are families subjected to state abuse in my view.

The absence of the children from school may be because they are caring;looking after siblings; doing the housework; too tired to attend; haven't done homework and are frightened to say why; are being bullied for being different. Should these families be further penalised? They are already most likely to live in poverty because of the disability/ illness of the parent. Yet again Government has failed to understand the real issue. They have failed to find out why children are absent and suggest punitive action which will impact on some of the most vulnerable children

I've heard it said and I've read it several times that the pre-school years are the most important learning years a person ever has. That's when we learn our attitudes to learning and that's when we learn how to learn effectively in all sorts of ways, social and 'mechanical' as well as intellectual.

Our daughter and sil have 'exposed' our grand-kids to books almost from day one. Always books around, and regular reading of stories, and always, always, stories at bed time, with the little ones around, looking at the book with dad or mum- or with us when we are there. We spent some time with our other daughter recently, at the same time as her step grand-son and his parents. I was struck by his lack of good communication and verbal skills- as he is exactly the same age as grand-daughter, 2 and half. After they'd left, I talked to this with my daughter, and she agreed the gap is huge. She said there are no books at all in their house, children or adults at all. No paper and pencils, paints, plasticine, playdough, pasta collage, scissors, etc. They usually watch TV, even at meal times, and that the difference is hardly surprising. Very sad really - and a reminder that some kids begin school already way 'behind', not because they are not bright, but because they have not been 'exposed' to many skills.

nelliedeane

Spot on, granjura. Thatcher murdered manufacturing and mining and said Britain would become a great financial service centre for the world. Well, we have seen what happened to that idea.
I used to run courses on the teaching of reading for primary and middle school teachers. My staff used different approaches and for some of the teachers it was an eye-opener as they had been taught one rigid method at teacher training college, pending on the outlook of the Head of primary education.
We don't know exactly how children learn to read, but it is probably different for each child. One will recognise a whole word,one will look for clues in the context or illustration, one will build up letter by letter, most will use all these skills. It is a myth that things were much better in the old days - when I volunteered for the Adult Literacy Scheme in 1972 it was estimated that there were two million illiterate adults in Britain. As granjura says, many were holding down responsible positions in industry. Now, they would be practically unemployable.

In the 50s and 60s there were plenty of people who left school unable to read, write or do basic maths. But they were quickly absorbed into labouring jobs where that didn't really matter. Textiles, mining, steel works, etc, etc.
I had the pleasure to meet a lot of retired textiles girls from Leicestershire- and they were very honest and open about it - they loved their job, had loads of fun and camaraderie and earned a decent crust. Nowadays, this just wouldn't be possible- and the youngsters have much higher expectations themselves anyway- and all want to work in IT or white-collar jobs where insufficient levels of literacy and numeracy are a real handicap and very noticeable.

Just interested by the definition of "not learning to read". We used to talk about a reading age of nine for independence, but now I think most people would see Level 3 as the take-off point. Are there really a large proportion still at Level 2 in Year 7 in your school, Jess? If so it must be really difficult. Are people still using the additional literacy strategies?

Any ideas about why these kids can't learn to read by the time they're eleven, jess? I'm presuming various things have been tried during their primary school years. Perhaps I shouldn't presume that? Or, to put it another way, is it reasonable to expect there to be no "school failures"? Ideally, of course, there wouldn't be, but I'm talking about reality.

School trips and D of E in our school are in holiday time if they are essentially holidays. They are limited as the kids are poor (although only 15 miles from Gracesmum and her school's foreign trips). But the same applies in my nephews fee paying school.
Educational trips e.g. geography field trips are in term time.
If a head is chasing improved attendance, they will have to attack all fronts. Holiday discouragement may be an easy hit compared to getting a school avoider to attend regularly.
Many children get to secondary without the basic skills they need to access secondary curriculum. There has been a lot of pressure on secondary schools in poorer areas over recent years - but we still get kids turning up at 11 who can't read. It must be truly miserable for them. No wonder some of them don't want to come to school.

Yes poverty and poor nutrition are significant factors. Add in to that chaotic homes, where children don't get put to bed and therefore don't wake up for school, parents who truanted and don't make the children go to school, negative attitudes to the value of education ; all this contributes towards the kind of poor attendance patterns in primary that lead to serious truanting in secondary. Poor attendance also disrupts continuity in learning so the children miss out all the time. In many cases (not all of course) these are the children who don't get to Level 4 in primary and don't make five A to Cs in secondary. It is really hard for schools and it takes enormous amounts of energy and resources to change things.

My observations suggest that children who are healthier tend to have better attendance records too.

Lots of ways Greatnan. One of my link primary schools had a competition to design a class flag, made the flags in design technology and then flew the flag of the class with the best attendance outside the school for a week at a time. The children got really excited about it and really wanted to win. The governors got the parents into school through various activities (cooking, nail art, supporting literacy, anything to get them through the door) and then spent time working with the them about how they could improve attendance and help the children to learn. The school had children that came in at five well below the national average, but regularly made the top 100 schools nationally for progress by the end of Key Stage 2. Secondary schools work in different ways, following up poor attendance, ringing parents and giving incentives for good attendance amongst many others strategies. Of course, improving teaching is at the heart of all school improvement, but attendance makes a big difference.

But how do they improve attendance? Do they pay more attention to 'problem' pupils, make the lessons more relevant, get the pupils involved in dealing with bullying, etc? The hen or the egg?

Except that when schools improve attendance the results improve. I have worked directly with schools where we have seen this very clearly and there is plenty of evidence that shows that it is the case.

There is a big difference between persistent truanting and a week off with the parent's consent for a holiday.

So pupils who are absent a lot have poorer results - let's look at that a different way - pupils who are getting poor results are absent a lot. If two factors occur together, it shouldn't be automatically assumed that there is a causal relationship in one direction.

I think the point is that illness is unavoidable absence and holidays are avoidable. It isn't possible or fair, except in very exceptional circumstances, for schools to be asked to decide if term-time holidays are "worthwhile" or "not worthwhile". The evidence tells us that pupils who have poor attendance do less well at school. You therefore have to minimise absences as much as you possibly can.

Well yes, and yet. If your child's education is going to be affected by missing school- what price to pay? Problem with using discretion is that it is likely to fall back on 'class lines'. Want to take the kids to Benidorm = NO. Want to take the kids hiking with Lamas in Peru = YES. How does a Head decide and be consistent. Of course in the case of someone serving in forces and back on leave, it is much clearer.
My OH couldn't take holidays during school holidays for years, Christmas never, and Easter 1 in 4 years - but that was that. Living abroad, I never had Christmas 'back home' with my parents- but they came to us a few times.

20 years ago is hardly yesteryear

I meant your post before last.

Not sure how useful it is to judge expectations re. holiday destinations etc. now by the standards of yesteryear.

Exactly my point granjura

Of course, there are some very special cases, and discretion should be used. But those are very rare. Usually it is just about cheaper cost. When our kids were young, we went Youth Hostelling or camping in the UK or nearby France on a self-catering basis during school hols, and started travelling further afield when our kids were older. A nice holiday does not have to be in Spain, Greece, St Moritz or Disneyland- which now seems expected by many.

My daughter was on tenterhooks when her six month old baby had chicken pox because they were going on holiday and she knew he would not be allowed to travel on the plane until all the scabs were healed. This was 12 years ago.
If a parent is quite unable to take holidays except in term time - for example, he/she might be in the forces, or working abroad, it seems very harsh to say the family cannot have a holiday at all. I am sure none of us are referring to older pupils studying for imminent exams. I am glad head teachers are going to be allowed to use their discretion in the light of the family circumstances.

Petallus, I have spent 100s of hours supporting children at home because of sickness or accident, or even 2 teenagers whilst heavily pregnant or just given birth. It is hugely time-consuming, + of course preparation, preparing special work-sheets and exercises, photocopying what we've done in class, doing tapes, etc, etc. And so have my colleagues, with the greatest of pleasure, making it easier for those kids to get back into school without too much trouble.
But would I do this for kids having gone off to Benidorm or skiing in St Moritz, no, no and ... well no. A huge difference imho.

Thanks to those who told me all about chicken pox. Rather missed my point though.

If a child is off school for a couple of weeks due to an illness (of any kind not just chicken pox) then there is uually an optimistic view by the school that work can be caught up on. If the child is away for a couple of weeks to go on holiday, consequences for academic performance are seen as potentially much more dire.

It is not logical to say that two weeks off each year for holidays would be an academic disaster but two weeks off through illness would not.

So context effects perception. So there is an ethical/moral dimension to the issue.