L&T Blog T2 Week 1: Parental attitudes towards attendance

 

Dear WA,

I hope everyone is well and that you had a restful half term break! A key focus for us, and for schools nationally, is to improve attendance to school. As such, a recent report about parental attitudes towards attendance by Public First was an interesting read. 

Objectives: To understand parental attitudes towards school attendance and how they may have changed.

Summary: 
The research has the following key findings:

• Covid has caused a significant shift in parental attitudes towards attendance to school.
• Parents no longer believe that it is important for their children to be in school every day.
• Schools and parents are communicating less effectively across the socioeconomic spectrum.
• Parents perceive school attendance systems as draconian, and as not based on robust information. This erodes trust further between parents and schools.
• Mental health issues and the cost of living crisis are compounding issues with attendance to school. 
• Despite popular perceptions, the increasing frequency of parents working from home is not driving the issues with attendance to school

How does this impact me and my practice?: Some reflections arising from this that might be helpful to consider are: 

What does this mean for the students I work with in my classes and tutor group?
How do I communicate about attendance with parents?
What might schools do differently to combat some of the shifts in parental attitudes about attendance?

Please do get in touch if you would like to talk further about this - I’d love to hear from you!

Thanks, Jaya