Who's not here...? Working towards keeping "absentee students" at school

Section One: The Study in Context

Chapter One - The Study

BACKGROUND TO THE STUDY

Since the advent of ‘Tomorrow’s Schools’ there has been increasing concern expressed by school and their boards of trustees about absenteeism in schools and the lack of resources schools can call on when following up serious cases. The media in some areas has also carried comment on the problem.

The implementation of ‘Tomorrows Schools’ saw the demise of the education board truancy officers whose role it was to police non-attendance. The responsibility of former education boards for ensuring that children attended school has now been devolved to the boards of trustees who must, as stated in Part III, section 23 of the Education Act 1989, “take all reasonable steps to ensure that students who are required to attend school do so”. While the former system had its faults such as insufficient funding and personnel, it was seen by schools as being a resource they could call on if needed and it separated the role of punisher from that of ‘carer and provider’.

The dissolution of education board offices and the role of the truancy officer now means that there is no central point from which children who may fail to enrol at school or re-enrol on changing schools can be investigated, or to which those who are chronic absentees can be referred for further action. The current legislation governing truancy has been criticised by schools, their boards and also the media as being ineffective and unworkable. The boards of trustees are now responsible for ensuring that all reasonable steps are taken to ensure that children enrolled in their school attend when it is open. Under section 31 of the Education Act 1989, a board may appoint an attendance officer for the school it administers. Attendance officers may also be shared by several schools thereby reducing costs. Funding for attendance officers must come from schools’ bulk funding.

In reality, boards claim they are too busy in their roles as school administrators to have the time to follow up truancy cases¹. Their priorities for funding lie in areas where a maximum number of children will benefit from their decisions rather than concentrating on a very small number, relatively speaking, and becoming involved in what Is seen as a costly, time-consuming and often ineffective exercise.

Boards are for these reasons also unlikely to initiate prosecution proceedings even though some schools would like to see cases of chronic truancy brought before the courts to serve as a warning to other parents and children, although the penalties permitted by the legislation, as in the past, are minimal and often would not cover the costs incurred. It would seem that since October 1989 only three schools in New Zealand hove brought prosecutions to court, only two of these schools were ‘successful’. One school has prosecuted three parents (each was fined $150 plus court costs). The case bought by another of the schools was dismissed by the court.

The actual size of the truancy problem is unknown as there are no figures kept nationally which would give an overall indication of non-attendance at school or whether such non-attendance is justified or unjustified. There is a growing concern, however, that some schools are not tackling the problem at all while others are barely coping. There is also considerable concern about those children who are not enrolled in school and uncertainty as to whose job it is to ensure that children are enrolled.
 
The boards also believe that truancy investigation/prosecution should be the function of an agency other than the school itself as the laying of prosecutions could damage school-community relations².

Concerns expressed by school boards about dealing with non-attendance related to funding which they felt was inadequate to cover guidance and counselling services, attendance officers, and the cost of court proceedings; legal penalties not being sufficient to act as either a deterrent or to cover court costs; and attendance not being monitored by any agency when children leave one school and enrol at another. Boards were also concerned that Māori students constituted a disproportionately high percentage of those not attending school³.

The above concerns had been expressed to various Ministry of Education district offices, which in turn passed them on to the National Operations Division of the Ministry’s national office which agreed to hold on internal meeting to discuss what could be done.

This led to the establishment of a working group in November 1990, to define the issues of
concern regarding school attendance. It was comprised of members drawn from the School
Trustees Association (STA), the Parent Advocacy Council, and the Ministry of Education -
National Operations Division and Legal Services Section.

At their 14 February 1991 meeting, this group recommended that the Research and Statistics Division of the Ministry be contracted to provide a report on schools which had effective systems in place for, monitoring attendance and following up absences. At a workshop on school attendance held on 6 June 1991 this became a recommendation and it was endorsed that the research study collect information from all parties - both Māori and non-Māori - concerned with non-attendance (principals, teachers, STA, parents and young people)⁴. It was also recommended by this workshop that there was a need to focus on ‘legislative change and ways of improving the present system for dealing with school attendance and truancy’⁵.

Chapter Two - School Attendance: A Survey of the Recent Literature

There has been little research done in New Zealand on the topic of school attendance and absences. For this reason most of the literature in this survey has been drawn from Australian, North American, and British sources. That non-attendance at school is a perennial problem is evidenced by the fact that there is a constant ‘trickle’ of work being produced. It is never a fashionable topic of investigation, nor is it ever one that con be ignored,

This section, then, investigates the characteristics of absentees as presented in the literature; the possible causes of non-attendance at school; and some of the things schools can do to improve their student attendance levels.

CHARACTERISTICS OF SCHOOL ABSENTEES

Throughout the literature, there is a general consensus of opinion that school absentees and truants, when compared with other students, tend to have a lower educational ability (although this is not always the case: Leeds, 1987) and are less concerned about the effects of skipping school or class. Generally they come from disadvantaged backgrounds where lack of parental support and supervision are the norm. Typically the absentee/truant has low self-esteem and feels powerless in school. They may also feel that the curriculum is boring and not relevant to them. As a result these students can become resentful, disruptive in class; and generally do little to win the respect of their teachers and fellow students. (Reid, 1986; Eastwold, 1989).

Fergusson, Harwood and Shannon (1986) concluded from their study that absenteeism was a function of the child’s health status and the levels of social advantage/disadvantage experienced by the family. This group of students were also likely to have lower levels of academic performance than other groups.

There is an additional category of absentee (defined in the literature), the ‘school refuser’. As defined by Berg (1969) these students have extreme difficulty in attending school and experience extreme emotional reactions in attempting to attend. They do not display anti-social behaviour and remain at home with parental consent. This group are not included in this review of the literature.

RESEARCH ON ABSENTEEISM

Reid in his book Disaffection from School (1986) states that research into disaffective behaviour in the 1960’s and l970’s tended to focus on the social and psychological aspects of this type of behaviour. The belief was that schooling was a weak influence on pupil conduct when compared with the stronger influences of home, social background, and individual characteristics.

In more recent research, however, it has been shown that there are differences between schools in attendance rates, exam passes, disruption, and delinquency, which may indicate that individual school ‘ethos’, organisation, teacher-pupil relationships, and curriculum do make a difference to pupil outcomes such as levels of achievement and disaffection.

Hounslow (1979), an Australian researcher, suggested that there were several areas in which students may become alienated from schooling: the curriculum, teacher-pupil relationship, discipline, competition and educational achievement, control within schools, and school ethos.

 
Reid (1986) in his summary of British literature on school differences says that the pupil-teacher ratios, amount of money spent on the physical environment of the school, class size and the formal organisational structure of the school seem to hove little effect on the pupil outcomes. Rather it is the informal ‘unstructured’ atmosphere’ or ‘ethos’ embraced by the school which has a determining effect. In their study of six New York schools ‘that work’ Doyle and Cooper (1983) state that the ‘crucial ingredient in school success is school “ethos” ‘. This term is used in the literature to describe the schools sense of purpose and reciprocal expectations the school and their communities have for each other.

The British report Discipline in Schools (Elton, 1989) states: ‘That while the social and economic characteristics of a school’s catchment area may be a strong influence on its attendance role, they do not rigidly determine it. Schools can and do make a difference.’

It is worth noting that non-attendance at school tends to occur most often in the middle years at secondary school, in the winter months and on Mondays and Fridays.

CAUSES OF NON-ATTENDANCE

Throughout the literature, there is a recurring theme -

Students who skip school do so for a variety of interconnected reasons (Berg, 1985; Reid, 1986; Leeds, 1987) -

• As a result of their home background and social class:
• For social & environmental, socio-psychological, and cultural reasons: and
• Because of factors related to the school as on institution, rather than its physical environment. (Leeds (1987) sees these factors as being the immediate precipitating factors which cause students to absent themselves from class or school.)

Absenteeism is a multicausal, multidimensional problem (Reid 1986) and as the combinations of the above factors vary for each student any attempt at managing the problem is very complex.

Leeds (1987) in her summary of Australian research concluded that ‘young people who truant have a dislike of school organisational features and a predisposition towards truancy which is related to a complex of characteristics including socio-economic status’.

There are many factors contributing to non-attendance at school, some of which may be difficult for the school to overcome, such as community attitudes to education, socio-economic status, and family problems.

SCHOOL POLICIES

Reid (1986) points out that many schools fail to come to grips with the problem of absenteeism, as many teachers are not particularly sympathetic to students who do not attend school or class. Principals, according to the Elton Report (1989), ‘should be aware of the unsettling effects of absence on school atmosphere and pupils’ behaviour’ and, ‘should recognise that the quality of a school’s atmosphere and curriculum is an important factor in encouraging regular attendance.

It is clear that non-attendance is more than just a school problem, but as Eastwold (1989) and several other writers say, schools con have a significant impact on non-attendance by giving high priority to effective attendance policies. From the research done, the most effective efforts involve not only the school but also the community in which it is situated.

Attendance problems often begin early in school life (Reid. 1986; Berwlck-Emms, 1987); therefore, it is necessary that primary schools as well as secondary schools develop effective means of detecting and dealing with them. Reid (1986) advocates that all schools should have policies to combat absenteeism. Such policies involve time, commitment, and consistency on the part of all school staff (Eastwold, 1989).

Miller (1986) suggests that schools should create an attendance philosophy and this should be publicised so that parents and students are aware that the school expects promptness in all classes and regular attendance at school. The school should also establish a structured attendance policy which is also communicated widely to parents and students. It should describe the responsibilities of students, parents, teachers, and administrators and also outline the procedures that will be used if the truancy continues.

Reid (1986) states that ‘good schools’ achieve high levels of success with their pupils and generally arrive at effective solutions for all their students. In order to be successful these schools have realised that they must identify problems at an early stage and liaise between teachers and parents, and outside agencies when necessary.

SYSTEMS FOR IMPROVING ATTENDANCE

All the literature on school attendance states that students do not attend school for a variety of reasons and these can be categorised as ‘justified absences’ or ‘unjustified absences’ (Taylor, Sturrock & White, 1982); that is, the reasons given by the students or their parents were regarded as acceptable or not acceptable by the teachers. Fergusson uses the terms ‘legitimate’ and ‘illegitimate’.

Whatever categories the absences fall into, cumulatively they adversely affect students’ schooling. For this reason it is essential that teachers maintain accurate records of class attendance (Berwick-Emms, 1987) not only to enable them to keep a check on what a student has missed but also to enable the principal or the person responsible for attendance to detect students whose absences are outside the norm.

The literature advocates frequent roll calls and spot checks to identify those pupils who may not be attending school/class. These checks would usually be followed by contact with parents/guardians. If this was not successful then authorities such as welfare agencies and the Police might be brought in. Serious and persistent truanting, it was suggested, could often lead to prosecution.

Reid (1986) presents what he calls the Bicester Plan. This involves registers being taken at the beginning of every class as well as at form time. Any pupil who is found to be absent and has not already notified the school is immediately investigated. All causes of absence on the daily absence list are systematically checked and regular feedback is given to staff. This process has resulted in reduced absences from specific classes. The key to the success of this plan is the unity and coordinated effort on the part of all the staff.

Eastwold (1989) found that virtually all schools with effective attendance policies utilised some form of monitoring and recording system, a follow-up procedure for absences, and disciplinary action where this was necessary. He listed some of the additional features of these policies which contributed to their success -

• One person within the school is assigned as supervisor of school attendance procedures and interventions.
• Phone calls are made to the home for all unexplained absences.
• Parents are involved in the process.
• Incentives are offered for good attendance.
• Other agencies are involved.
• Alternative educational programmes are used.
• Administrators and teachers have high expectations for the students.’

 
Some schools may also use things such as autodialling machines, computerised attendance systems, truancy sweeps by police, and offering employment opportunities and information to ‘at-risk’ students.

The Hargreaves Report (1984) in Britain, stated that every school should have an effective attendance policy. They believed that good practice was associated with -

• A senior teacher being given responsibility for student attendance.
• A list of absentees being produced quickly - preferably by morning break.
• The school devising a sensitive plan for the immediate follow-up of absentees, either by phone calls, letters, or visits.
• Form tutors ensuring that attendance records are as accurate as possible and that explanations for absences are given on return to school.
• Those responsible for good student attendance having regular meetings with Education Welfare officers.
• Spot checks for specific lesson truancy.
• Penalties being introduced for pupils who are persistently late.
• Rewards for pupils or classes with the best attendance record.
• Making every effort to socially and academically integrate the returning absentee.
  

The School Attendance and Truancy Kit outlines several advantages in maintaining attendance records. Teachers have immediate recourse to information for parent meetings. In the case of prosecutions the files contain information for including in the ‘summary of facts’. The personal files of non-attenders who change schools can be sent to their new school, thus ensuring continuity of action.

Berwick-Emms (1987) found that although there were many good attendance systems for helping children to attend school regularly, they were not always used consistently or for a long period of time. They were introduced when concern was expressed about attendance in a school, were used until the problem started to decrease, and were then dropped once the situation began to improve. The reason given for this was that monitoring attendance was time consuming in an already crowded day. The School Attendance and Truancy Kit however suggests that the maintenance of attendance files need not be time-consuming for teachers as it can be done by office staff.

Research has found that monitoring systems and punitive measures by themselves will not solve attendance problems.

Britain has on established system of ‘pastoral care’ teams working within schools, in theory these teams should provide a coherent framework of support to all pupils and teachers (Reid, 1986). However, this does not always work because of poor staff-staff liaison, poor teacher-pupil liaison, and various other factors operating within the school. It has been found that those schools which tend to emphasise pastoral care at the expense of academic achievement are less successful, than those that do not, in terms of combating disaffected behaviour (Rutter, 1979; MacMillan, 1979). Many pastoral care systems tend to be rule and institution oriented rather than pupil oriented and thus unsuccessful.

Dan Miller (1986), in an article entitled ‘Fifty Ways to Improve Attendance’, gives guidelines that schools can use to improve daily attendance rates. In the USA it is particularly important that schools have as many pupils as possible in school each day as their funding allocation is based on attendance.
Miller (1986) suggests that having established their attendance philosophy and policies, schools should hold students accountable for their actions (especially unjustified absences) and know that they will be required to make up any work that they hove missed, truants being given less time to do this than those who were justifiably absent.

The responsibility for maintaining contact with students who are absent regularly should be divided between the school staff. Contact should be regular either by note, phone call, visit, or discussion when passing in the corridor, to let the student know that someone is taking an interest in them. Parents of absentee students should be contacted personally if possible, and should understand that they are required to notify the school of their child’s absence. Principals should contact the parents especially if the student has prolonged periods of absence, notifying them of the importance of regular attendance. Parent conferences should also be used at successive stages of the absence - first with the counsellor, then with the dean, and then with the principal. Counsellors and administrators should also visit the homes of truanting students. Taking the public health nurse with them was said to be beneficial in determining the validity of an illness.

Counselling of both absentee students and their parents can also be beneficial.

Miller (1986) also suggests the involvement of local agencies such as family services, community groups, the juvenile authorities such as the Police, and government departments such as social welfare. If parents persistently neglect the educational requirements of their children (legally parents are responsible for ensuring that their children attend school), then they should be prosecuted.

Enlisting the support of the local community and media is one way of publicising and gaining support for the school’s efforts to improve attendance.

Miller also suggests that it is beneficial to try to establish just what the cause of a students non-attendance is. Is it a school or learning problem or is it an emotional problem? If it is a school or learning problem then the school can go some way to dealing with it. If it is an emotional problem then the student can be referred for counselling. School problems can be dealt with. School rules are often seen by students to be petty and meaningless and result in unnecessary confrontation between students and staff (Gillham, 1984). It is therefore worth considering which school rules can be effectively maintained and enforced by staff (Gillham, 1984). Reid (1986) states that those schools with high truancy rates tend to be those which are most narrowly custodial, with high levels of control and strict rule enforcement. The staff in these schools also tend to be isolated from the parents and pupils. Students, Reid goes on to say, should be encouraged to take an active part in the daily life of their school.

Other areas which can be dealt with by the school’ are curriculum and timetabling (Gillham, 1984). Often students feel that the curriculum is unrewarding for them. It is possible to involve students in ‘cocurricular’ activities: ie. activities in which they are interested and which will hopefully, as a result of this interest, improve their attendance (Miller, 1986). Teachers who are enthusiastic about the subject they teach and who use effective teaching and classroom management techniques can also improve attendance (Miller, 1986). Teachers should ensure that the work they set is suited to all levels of ability within their class. They should also allow less able students to experience success in terms of well defined objectives. Reid (1986) also advocates academic achievement for all students and the use of rewards such as praise for work well done. Lessons should be well planned (Gillham, 1984) and start and finish on time (Mortimore, 1980). Reid (1986) maintains that purposeful syllabus construction, detailed schemes of work, planned variety in activities, active pupil involvement and sensitive teacher response to pupils’ efforts can all be achieved by schools.

Timetabling high interest lessons should be encouraged on Mondays and Fridays when, absenteeism tends to be highest (Miller, 1986; Eastwold, 1989). Care should also be taken to timetable lessons so that those which require close concentration and a great deal of effort do not occur one after the other or in the afternoon (Reid, 1986).

Rewarding good attendance either on a class or an individual level has been suggested by several writers (DuFour 1983; Miller, 1986).

Desnoyers and Pruker (1988) list several Issues, characteristics, and procedures about which there is general agreement. They suggest a programme needs to have -

• An atmosphere of caring about what happens to the pupil.
• Involvement and motivation of all the school staff including administrators, and pupils, as well as involvement of parents and community agencies.
• Flexibility in handling students and student problems.
• Close liaison with parents and guardians when students are absent.
• Early identification of high risk children and a quick response to attendance problems.
• School autonomy in selling up programmes and approaches appropriate to the community from which the school draws its pupils.
• Good reporting procedures.
• Good programme evaluation.
• Court involvement as a last resort to book up attendance laws.
  

Some schools or groups of schools prefer to withdraw their chronically disruptive and absentee pupils from the mainstream classrooms altogether (Berg, 1985). These students are then placed in a special unit or class where efforts are made to improve their attendance and levels of academic achievement. There are, however, problems associated with this approach. Students who have attended these special units eventually need to be reintegrated into the mainstream classroom once their attendance and achievement have improved to an agreed level. Reintegration of these pupils from British experience, according to several researchers quoted in Reid (1986), is rarely successful. American research has shown that some programmes of this type can be successful and the students are successfully reintegrated into the mainstream school (Eastwold, 1989).

SOME CONCLUSIONS

Non-attendance at school is a complex problem which cannot be remedied without considering both the structures within a school as well as the pupils and staff within it and the unique background features they each bring to the equation.

Research (Leeds, 1987) has suggested that some students display a predisposition to non-attendance and this may go part way to explaining why some students may not attend while others from similar backgrounds, class levels, or life experiences do attend.

Non-attenders at school tend to come from socially disadvantaged backgrounds and have lower achievement levels than other students. Many feel that the curriculum is not relevant to them and so become bored with school or particular classes. Typically absentees have poor academic achievement and feel powerless in school.

Much of the recent research on school attendance suggests that the school can go some way towards combating this problem by putting in place positive action programmes to ensure that school attendance is improved. These programmes involve time, dedication, and consistency on the part of staff. They will consist of monitoring systems of various types (suited to the school’s circumstances), as well as appropriate procedures for following up absent students and any other action that the schools feel is appropriate to keep their students at school.
 

Chapter Three - The Research

After discussion it was decided, because of time constraints and the complexity of the problem, that the aim of the research project would be to investigate, in a small number of schools, existing monitoring and follow-up systems which were deemed to be successful. The information gained in this way could be used to provide some guidance to schools which did not already have systems in place. The Research Section of the Research and Statistics Division of the Ministry of Education was contracted to undertake the research.

METHODOLOGY

The Sample

In April1991, the National Operations Division of the Ministry of Education asked each of the liaison officers in the district offices to nominate schools in their area, which they felt were using effective systems to monitor school attendance and follow up absentees.

Twenty-three schools throughout the country were nominated. These schools were then approached by the researchers and asked if they would participate in the study. All agreed to do this. The final sample of schools consisted of 12 secondary schools and 11 primary schools (4 of which were intermediates).

Based on discussions with an advisory group consisting of representatives from Te Wahanga Māori, Policy, and National Operations Divisions and staff from some district offices it was proposed that several interviews be carried out in each school depending on who was involved in the process. Typically this would include principals, school groups, community groups, attendance officer, visiting teacher, and a member of the board of trustees. It was suggested that, if possible, the board interview involve a Māori board member. The schools were then approached and asked which of these groups were involved in matters of attendance within their school and who would be available to be interviewed.

Instruments Used

As this study was to be largely a descriptive account of what was being done in schools the use of interviews was considered the best way to obtain the data needed. Interviews would allow follow-up questions to be asked if necessary in order that as complete a picture as possible could be built up of the systems in use in each school.

Five interview schedules were designed, according to the role or each person or group involved in monitoring attendance and/or following up absences - principals, boards of trustees representatives, school groups, attendance officers or visiting teachers, and community groups.

Interviews

Principal

The focus of the principal interview was generally of a school-wide or policy nature such as school attendance policies and practices. They were asked whether they considered absence to be a problem in their school; about procedures for following up children who change schools; school factors which may contribute to attendance - including the programmes offered and whether the school had any extra resources for monitoring attendance, either within the school or shared with other schools. They were asked how the procedures which were in place in their school had been developed, whether they had been evaluated and if it was likely that any changes would be made. The principals (as for all other participants in the study) were asked to evaluate the effectiveness of their procedures and also to describe any problems that they could see.

School Group

The ‘school group’, which was comprised of staff within the school with responsibility for monitoring attendance and following up absentees, were asked about the systems that were in place in the school for doing this on a daily basis and on a class-by-class basis. They were asked how the absences were recorded and whether, the reasons for absences were noted, from whom explanations for absence were accepted, and whether these were ever verified. They were also asked what steps were taken to follow up ‘unjustified’ absences and what they did if attendance did not improve as a consequence of the steps taken. Finally, they were asked to evaluate the effectiveness of the system as it operated in their school.

Community Groups and Visiting Teachers or Attendance Officers

The community group and visiting teachers were people from outside the school, with whom the school liaised, and who had a role in assisting the school with matters of attendance and/or absence. Attendance officers are appointed by the school and in terms of attendance their roles overlap. The attendance officers and visiting teachers were asked the same questions which were similar to the questions asked of the community groups.

They were asked just what they did as individuals on groups to assist the school in encouraging attendance and following up absences, with whom they liaised in the community, and how they had become involved in the process. They were asked which types of children/absence they followed up and, if parent contact was part of their role, what they did if they were unable to contact parents/caregivers. This group were also asked what factors they considered contributed to the effectiveness of what they did and any problems they had in carrying out their responsibilities.

Board of Trustees Representatives

The interview with members of the boards of trustees aimed to establish whether each school’s board was aware of its legal responsibilities in matters of attendance under the terms of the Education Act 1989. It went on to establish what boards considered to be ‘reasonable steps’ to be taken in ensuring that all children enrolled at their school attended, and whether there were any barriers to them in doing this. It further explored the role of individual board members in school attendance matters whether the board had appointed an attendance officer, and whether the board liaised with any other boards on attendance matters. A number of Māori board members were interviewed; they were asked an additional question –namely, what the local Māori community expected of them with regard to attendance matters.

Data Collection

The principals of most of the selected schools were asked to arrange a day - prior to the mid-term break - when it would be possible to conduct the interviews in their schools. The remaining schools were visited after mid-term break.

The questionnaires were trialled at three of the selected Wellington schools in June. The researchers did this in pairs as some had not carried out interviews before. The interviews for the main part of the study were carried out by individual researchers. Structured interview schedules were used and the researchers used cassette-recorders to record responses (only after gaining interviewees permission) and also took notes to safeguard against tape failure. Considerable skills in coping with the foibles of electronic equipment, note pads, and associated paraphernalia were developed at this point!

Footnotes

1. National Operations File IO 10/05/005 correspondence.
2. Letter from New Zealand School Trustees Association to National Operations 12 December 1990.
3. Memo dated 13 September 1990 National Operations file IO 10/05/005.
4. Minutes of workshop held 6 June 1991.
5. Press release 11 July 1991.