See if this adds up. Truancy figures are at a record high, despite the government spending £900 million on tackling it. So they suggest keeping kids at school until they are 18, even though thousands of them refuse to stay there until 16. They already have the choice to stay until 18 if they wish.
They are now spending £2 million in Norfolk to pioneer a new anti-truancy programme, also aimed at improving classroom behaviour. This involves appointing parent support advisers to befriend parents of unruly kids over a coffee at their home or in a cafe if they find schools intimidating.
Talk about money for old rope, throwing away good money after bad. I thought the government was going to get tough on this, and had threatened to fine the parents of “hard core” truants. Has this actually happened yet?
What has that £900 million been spent on? Why have local education authorities failed on this so dismally?
What can a special adviser tell parents that they haven’t already heard? The parents know their kids are doing wrong, I expect they’ve been given lots of chances and support. But none of it has been wanted. I know of a case like this with a local lad, everyone has pulled out the stops for him, but he is not interested in education or training.
I don’t know what the answer is, but I’m sure that this £2 million could be better spent on providing desperately needed facilities in schools – it could pay for some special needs assistants to help kids struggling with dyslexia who DO want to go to school but don’t get the support they need.
We obviously need a new solution for this.
Why not have child benefit linked to attendance at school? If you miss one day a week you get 20% less child benefit per week.
Maybe if the size of classes and schools weren’t so large, schools and pupils might make a personal connection. It must be so easy to avoid going to school when no-one even knows you are missing.
We have a “non-attendance” issue at Universities too. When you’re faced with lectures of 200+ students and even seminar groups in excess of 20, it is difficult to get to know people.
I am convinced that education is about motivation and engagement. Something that is lacking for most kids in school – however much money is spent these days.
Maybe as Ellee indicates, it is time to spend money where those who want to learn will benefit most and make education more aspirational again.
I despair. I really do. Sorry to tell 2 more teaching stories but once a boy appeared in my year 11 class [old 5th form] who hadn’t been to school since the 1st year! The reason he’d come in that day? He’d wanted to be accepted for the 6th form, so that his mother could keep receiving some benefit or other. Another time [and I may have told you this before] a parent regarded a court appearance over his son’s truancy as “a day out”. I’ve seen so many initiatives over this and I’m afraid the only thing that’s going to work is getting tough on the parents – ie., doing something that will hit their pocket.
Link school attendance and behaviour to job seekers allowance, if the child in question does not have a satisfactory attendance and behaviour record, they will recieve a reduced rate of benefits, these can then be earned back by attending the relevant course at the local college.
Couple this with a system of fines to the parents, hiting their benfits or wages directly. a system of education baliffs if you like collecting money at source rather than pocket.
Hello Elle.
Welshcakes Limoncello I’m afraid I have a teaching story myself.
I recently went into a SEN school to deliver a website workshop for a project that has been running in Liverpool. The girls are of mixed ability and I was warned that I would no doubt get threatened with a stabbing if I challenged anyone of them.
My first day involved my repeating three little words. I’m gonna die! I’m gonna die! I’m gonna die!
The project lasted six weeks. I made an effort to get on with these girls and not just simply deliver the workshop.
I discovered that many of them hadn’t attended mainstream schools for a really long time.
The main reasons were:
Bullying whether due to weight issues, or status.
Ability – dyslexia, learning difficulties
Home life – abuse or indifference by parents
I got to find out another side to these kids and felt really heartbroken for the situations they found themselves in. The Project Leader and Headteacher told me that they were not only surprised how will the project had run but how the pupils had responded to me and the workshop.
So what did I do that was different?
I took the time to get to know them. spoke calmly, reasoned, treated them with respect, encouraged them to achieve, rewarded them with praise in their efforts, explained perceptions of what people would have of them, explained what they could have but it was ultimately down to them, treated them like young adults whose opinions counted, help them to understand alternative points of view.
Don’t get me wrong, we did have our ups and downs. But, they didn’t involve anything physical, no assaults, no chair throwing. Difference of opinions were aired and debated. Everyone had a say and they were encouraged to do so.
Team spirit so as to feel part of something was encouraged.
I still keep in touch with the school and the group and have been asked to go back in to deliver further projects.
My point finally you sigh is that it’s not just about beating these kids over the head with rules and regulations.
People like myself, teachers, Youth Offending Teams and Social workers are essential picking up the slack and acting as parents, big brothers, and sisters etc to help these kids. It can take its toll.
I fear that we will have a generation cycle if something doesn’t give. So I think as a starting point is that Parents should be made more accountable, Buster George makes a good point on this.
Also proper apprenticeships not the micky mouse crap nu-lab are promoting.
Social cohesion is also important.
In line with this we desperately need these SEN schools to tackle the issues these children are facing and try our best break the cycle.
Sorry for the novel.
Advisors to ‘befriend parents’? Truant catchers would be better.
Jesus wept £900 million, That money could have been funding on at least 90 schools at a minimum of 2 mill a year over five years per school. Probably with about 200 pupils per school.
Instead Nu-Lab send someone out and about, asking a child why they are not in school and sends them back to it! What a joke.
I’m just hoping you’re putting a report together on recomendations to a Tory MP after all this effort! I’m knackered.
Ellee, I don’t think it’s quite right that the plan is to keep them “at school” until 18, but in some form of education or training. This could be school but could also could be some form of apprenticeship or vocational training, as I understand it.
Teri, I’m delighted you turned such a possible nightmare scenario into a positive experience. But there also many cases like WL mentioned who don’t want to be helped. To think that £900 million was wasted like that is scandelous.
True, Buster’s idea sounds good. Carrots and sticks, etc.
And yes Jim, the plan may involve keeping kids in education or vocational training up to 18, but which company is going to take on a kid with bad attitude who skives off school and doesn’t want to learn? They are already given opportunities to do these things, those who want to will, and those who don’t, won’t. I don’t see it making any difference.
To my knowledge here in Oz, our truancy rate is minimal. Kids must stay in high school till they are 17 or 18 unless they have a job. Of course there are kids who are truant, but it doesn’t appear to be an epidemic.
Ellee I see where you are coming from but I do think Jim has a solution of parts. It’s not going to be a one point plan to resolve this.
A number of these kids need changes in circumstances from people in their environment ie Parents, Education System, society, monetary incentive or reduction. It’s going to take a lot of well thought initiaves working together to effect change. I do think Jim makes a good point.
I understand what you mean about skiving and bad attitudes. If we embark on a constructive plan of action to deal with some of issues we’ve all raised on this and possible solutions, then perhaps a plan of action to hopefully deal with those that have fallen through the net can be put in place.
Children effected by this have usually already gone through the system on numerous occasions and felt let down. Some of them are simply to scared to fail or have just had enough. Can you blame them?
I’m sure all of us have experienced piss poor change management in some form or another. The education system has been ripped apart by new labour and badly managed.
Teri, I would wholeheartedly support your project. But the thing is, with respect, the students don’t resent you from the start if they think you’re not there to “teach them something” subject-based. I could relate to these pupils very well – I’d had a life closer to theirs than many teachers had experienced – but in the end I would be judged by my ability to get exam results and not my ability to relate. Even 10 years later, I think and worry about the constant truanters – what is happening to them now, and more importantly, what view of school are they passing on to their own children? For the problem , I fear, is a self-perpetuating one.
WL I agree. It is self perpetuating and I share the same worries. Maybe if the situation hadn’t have got as bad as it is now, then teahcers like yourself would have some chance of helping to turn the situation around.
Less performance indicators for a start, smaller class sizes, more constructive school funding, better paid teachers and at least the ability to discipline without so much policitcal correctness.
Also, I was there to teach them fact based material – business & enterprise. But I didn’t the constraints that everyday teachers like you face.
Interesting discussion. I note the success story of Terri, and some of the more dismal stories. I also note welshcakes comment on this being sel perpetuating. That in part is the problem.
Firstly fining parents who have no or litle spare money is not going to help. As the Polish proverb goes “A naked man has nothing to fear from the law”.
I welcome any pilot project that is looking to try something new and inovative. We have to try new things to see if they work. What we have done in the past has not.
If you compare poor black kids performance against poor white, contrary to popular belief the white kids fair worse. That neither do well is a disgrace. In part the issue is a lack of valuing education from generation to generation. That cycle needs to be broken.