Tackling non-attendance in schools A practical approach

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Tackling non-attendance in schoolsA practical
approach

• Professor Dolf van Veen
• National Centre on Education and Youth Care
• Netherlands Youth Institute

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Structure of the presentation

• Amsterdam project overview and findings
• Emerging successful strategies
• Promising strategies (international perspective)
• Recommendations

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Recommendations (international research)

• Few rigorous, systematic studies most of the
  research is on intervention programmes, on how
  schools contribute to NA and on how school
  disengagement relates to increased attendance. No
  silver bullit approaches!
• NA as functional problem (motivation, family) or
  indicator of disengagement to which school
  culture/structure contribute
• Parental intervention is less effective with
  older students
• Strategies to encourage personalization are even
  more important for older children
• Strategies to encourage academic achievement are
  a driving force in policy and practice (plus
  funding, ranking schools, reduction behaviour
  problems and dropout)

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Recommendations (international research)

• attendance policies
• sound and reasonable
• communicated and understood
• differences between excused/non-excused absences
• parent notification and home-school contact
• early interventions
• home-school contact
• early support when pupils start struggling or
  become disengaged (in SEd first year!)
• fixed homework and bedtimes
• to get ready for school

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Recommendations (international research)

• targeted interventions (chronic truancy problems)
• in-school or rebound programmes
• academic, behavioural, family and health support
• include health and human services (BEST)
• strategies for increasing student engagement and
  personalization
• family involvement (communication, parent
  evening, home visits for extended NA, phone calls
  no letters-policy)
• personalized learning
• smaller learning units (schools-within-a-school,
  cluster teams/house plans, caring relationships)
• mentoring

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Recommendations (international research)

• student advisories
• culturally responsive school culture
• alternative programmes
• hold students accountable for completing
  assignments
• extended school days and service learning

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Amsterdam project overview

• 4 year RD-programme to improve attendance in
  Amsterdam 200 primary and 45 secondary schools
• focus on children and youth 10-15 year old (last
  two years in primary schools, first three in
  secondary) and on prevention-registration-early
  warning-intervention
• identification of key challenges and successful
  or promising strategies
• features of our approach school- and
  research-based, field experiments and
  upscaling/implementation support

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Amsterdam project baseline findings

• 3100 pupils (10-15 year) are not in school (9)
• average non-attendance in secondary education is
  12 (1st year 6, 3rd year 17), in primary
  education 3.7, in special education 6
• huge differences between schools range in
  primary 0-20, special education 0-38, secondary
  0-53
• 85 of parents inform the primary school, in
  secondary 1st year 68, 3th 40 many schools
  dont know why kids are not in school (no follow
  up, after one week reasons unclear in 30-50 of
  the cases)
• 1300 pupils (42) are seen as problematic and at
  risk

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Amsterdam project baseline findings

• (authorized) daily illness is 2 in PEd and 5 in
  SEd
• truancy in secondary is 4 and 0.4 in primary
  education
• non-attendance and truancy (extended NA) are
  higher if parents and schools are more tolerant
• important risk factors are low-achievers/slow
  learners, school type, educational level of the
  parents, cumulation of youth at risk in a
  class/year group
• non-attendance in some ethnic-minority groups is
  lower, non-authorized non-attendance is higher
• complex relation between school quality and
  non-attendance

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Amsterdam project key challenges

• understanding the reasons for non-attendance and
  truancy
• efficient system for dealing with being late and
  absenteeism
• sufficient staff during peak hours (morning) to
  deal with phone calls from parents and with
  follow up
• clear definitions of (authorized and
  non-authorized) non-attendance and truancy
• registration/monitoring systems should include
  school responses on non-attendance and results of
  strategies
• improve day/week schedules and the distribution
  of homework assignments

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Amsterdam project key challenges

• improve communication with parents and pupils,
  parental involvement, and student support
  services
• maintaining strict and fair policies and increase
  personalized and supportive responses
• increase in sophisticated registration systems in
  SEd high on procedures and punishment, low on
  follow up and pedagogy and on the evaluation of
  school data
• improve homework policy (and support)
• improve classroom and school climate (SEd) from
  tourists to citizens in the classroom

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Amsterdam project selected interventions

• experiment in 30 primary schools with high
  non-attendance rates focus on improved
  registration, follow up, intensified
  communication with parents and targeted
  interventions
• experiment in 6 secondary schools with solid
  attendance registration focus on developing fast
  and problem adequate and effective responses
• experiment in 1 low-performing secondary school
  focus on consistency management and co-operative
  discipline (CMCD)
• experiment in 12 secondary schools focus on
  building improved learning and behaviour support
  teams and on fast responses in case of
  (frequent) illness

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Amsterdam project findings four years later

• from 9 to 12 of pupils (10-15) are not in
  school
• non-attendance in secondary education from 12 to
  13.4, in primary education from 3.7 to 4.2
• non-attendance informed by parents from 85 to
  58 in primary schools, and from 68 to 25 (1st
  year) and from 40 to 22 (4th year) in secondary
  schools
• school follow up in PEd from 56 to 23, in SEd
  from 57 to 61 (but a 35 decrease in fast
  interventions)
• average daily illness in PEd from 2 to 3.3 and
  in secondary from 5 to 1.9

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Amsterdam project findings field experiments

• CMCD-project in SEd improved attendance, lower
  discipline referrals, improved attainment
• PEd-project (NA-coordinator) improved
  registration and follow up resulted initially in
  increased non-attendance, followed by significant
  lower levels of non-attendance being late
  disappeared and lower levels of illness.
• SEd-project (Illness) standard procedure (school
  doctor interviews parents/pupils whom are not in
  school 5 consecutive days or have missed 25 or
  more lessons in 4 weeks) is highly effective

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Amsterdam project findings field experiments

• SEd-project (BEST) improved results for frequent
  NA and youth at risk (f.i. lower levels of NA)
• SEd-project (targeting non-authorized NA the same
  day) being late reduced dramatically,
  understanding of NA increased (school factors
  f.i. schedule, specific classes/teachers,
  distribution of homework, need for extra learning
  support) as well as problem adequate responses
  improved attendance and students perceived better
  support

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Lessons learned

• registration is important as well as rapid
  responses and identifying the reasons for
  non-attendance analysis of data at pupil, class,
  year group and school level are vital to
  understand NA and develop sound strategies
• effective school strategies for NA need to be
  embedded in the archetecture of the pupil and
  parent support system
• non-attendance is lower if teaching and learning
  are personalized, if students feel missed and
  when students like to be at school
• personal (and phone) contact with parents is
  vital, stimulate peers to visit the pupil and pay
  attention to the (home)work they have missed

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Lessons learned

• NA signals that children and youth face
  difficulties
• discipline and stressors related to developmental
  tasks
• lack of parental support or too much control
• family issues, negative peer culture,
  violence/protection
• with teaching and learning, motivation, locus of
  control
• NA reflects that schools face challenges
• learning environment/school climate and structure
• competenties and attitudes of teachers/personnel
• internal support structure
• communicating existing supports to
  families/youngsters
• activating health and human services

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Recommendations for policy and practice

• (local and national) authorities can support
  schools by
• promoting (supports for) successful educational
  careers
• developing a supportive regional social
  infrastructure that works collaboratively with
  schools to promote positive behaviour,
  development and educational attainment
• good practices and realistic standards and
  guidelines concerning registration, monitoring
  and effective strategies
• Teachers/schools/boards
• make students feel missed, personalize and
  provide support
• create healthy, safe, stimulating and hospitable
  schools
• improve inter-agency collaboration, less talk,
  more actions
• from tourists to citizens in the classroom ...!

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More information?

• Professor Dolf van Veen
• National Centre on Education and Youth Care
• Netherlands Youth Institute
• Catharijnesingel 47
• 3510 DD Utrecht
• The Netherlands
• 31-30-230 6693
• d.vanveen_at_nji.nl

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BEST-teams in Dutch schools research findings
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BEST-teams in Dutch secondary schools findings