So today we get an announcement on truancy and how to combat it, given the woeful stats on the numbers of kids not attending school.

The rumour is that attendance officers are coming back.

If that’s the case, I hope it helps, but I wonder how much truancy is now an attitude that’s endemic, versus something we can just catch out with more surveillance.

Because I don’t doubt that up until now schools have been trying their best to keep kids engaged. Many have come up with community based solutions or student led solutions, which have worked a treat. Some have tried to crack down on attendance and failed – it varies from school to school, but I don’t doubt many parents, teachers and fellow students aren’t all doing their best to address the issue.

The problem is the data - the numbers show it’s just getting worse and you could argue the climate of the past few years hasn’t helped. Lockdowns, Covid, sickness, there are multiple factors at play.

But tip into this also the fact that attitudes in some cases have changed; school is not seen as that important anymore. Education perhaps not valued as much, some families have lost sight of any benefit to going to school.

Then there will be families who’re in dire straits maybe faced with making hard choices between work or school for their older students. This makes school even less accessible or practical – a cost of living crisis may mean they have to prioritize work and getting food on the table. Which makes fixing the truancy problem all the trickier. 

Once something is established as a pattern i.e., not attending school, it’s very hard to turn that around. And anyone who's raised teenagers knows that once they get to a certain age if they make up their mind that school’s not for them, that’s a big hurdle you face trying to convince them otherwise. 

I recall my attempt at truancy, when I opted to jump the school fence in sixth form with some mates, only to feel a tug on the back of my jersey pulling me back down off the fence, turning around to discover – to my horror, the person tugging my jersey was the Deputy Principal. First and last time I attempted that, the mortification was real. 

But that was a different time, a time when we feared and respected teachers.

So how much of it these days is attitudes, how much is school and the way we teach, what they’re taught and how it’s taught versus just the fact they just don’t want to be anywhere?

I’d like to think all these questions could be looked at and addressed in terms of trying to solve the problem because we probably need to know exactly where the problems are, in order to effectively find the solutions. 

Attendance officers may work in terms of chasing up absent kids, but does it work long-term in re-engaging them with school? Is cracking the whip the best way to go? Some of the best solutions may in fact be getting alongside whole families or communities and tapping into exactly where the problem lies. 

Like many things, the issue will be nuanced, and therefore probably require a nuanced approach. I just hope we haven’t let it get too bad for too long so that turning it back around isn’t too impossible.