How attendance hubs are tackling soaring absences
Academy trust attendance hubs are going beyond the school gates in their push to get children back in the classroom. Samantha Booth reports
One in five pupils was “persistently” absent last year, a figure that is nearly double the pre-Covid norm.
The government last year named nine attendance hubs, all in academy trusts, to help 600 schools struggling to cut these absences. So what solutions have these trusts found?
‘Forensic data’ is key …
Unity Schools Partnership has two schools in the attendance scheme – Abbots Green Primary Academy, in Suffolk, and St Edward’s Church of England secondary, in Essex.
Nick Froy, its education director, said it was “absolutely granular” with data – trying to spot patterns between siblings, friendship groups and at certain times of the year, for instance around mock exams.
“We have really quite sophisticated and complex spreadsheets that track attendance of every child in every school week by week,” he said. “And in some cases, day by day, lesson by lesson.”
Rivers Tees academies, an alternative provision trust attendance hub, is spending £5,000 a year to get a visual “heat map”, showing patterns of attendance for each pupil.
Christina Jones, its chief executive officer, said it was “helpful to see it visually” as it gave an “instant picture of any patterns in their attendance”.