Children and young people will get the support they need to get the most enjoyment from their educational experience and improve their life opportunities following the launch of a new attendance strategy by Dorset Council.
The new strategy, which will be implemented during this year and next, sets out to achieve the best attendance and raise the hopes and ambitions of our children and young people through a community partnership approach.
The vision for the new strategy is “attendance is everyone’s business” and will be achieved by the community working closely and positively together, and with everybody taking responsibility to support children to be safe in school. Everybody in the community will be able to be involved in making the strategy work; from school staff, parents and carers to local shop owners and GP surgeries.
The vision also highlights; “preparing our young people for adulthood” and “experiencing the best possible health and wellbeing” as important objectives. There will be a particular focus on children and young people in the secondary / upper phase of their education and children in receipt of free school meals. There will also be recognition when children have distinctive medical needs, to ensure their right to an education is met in partnership with education settings, health partners and families, by considering the unique needs of that child.
Good attendance is of vital importance to the Dorset community. It has been shown that there is a clear link between high attendance and educational attainment, leading to better life opportunities and the best results that an individual can achieve. There are also other benefits to young people’s wellbeing such as nurturing long-lasting friendships, engaging in new activities and enabling young people to be able to develop in a supportive environment.
After thorough consultation the attendance strategy has identified five key priority action areas of work which are:
- Consistent Dorset-wide policy and practice
- Knowledge sharing and communication
- Early identification and targeted intervention
- Consistent approach to transition (moving to a new school)
- Transport
This new attendance strategy work is already underway and will be bolstered by a communications campaign designed to reach everyone who can help.
Cllr Andrew Parry, Dorset Council Portfolio Holder for Children, Education and Early Help said:
“I’m really pleased that we have this important new plan so that we can work together across Dorset to improve attendance and ensure our children can receive the best start in their lives”
You can read the full attendance strategy document BELOW
Dorset Council schools and learning website information: HERE
High functioning autism and school attendance
Much more autism education and understanding by everyone, teachers, staff, pupils and particularly SEND, and education authorities, is needed so that autism is fully understood and catered for. Overwhelming anxiety plays a huge part of an autistic child’s life and it isn’t a case of parents not trying to get their child to school
The parents try so hard they risk their mental health and are literally at their wit’s end because of school attendance records and threats, which put attendance over their child’s mental health.
Education authorities as well as school staff need to understand that and the anguish of those parents who are trying their very best to deal with it every school day with little or no real help from anyone. Often because there is no one there to help them.
School refusal implies a choice, but for these children their high anxiety results in such intense fear and panic they simply are unable attend some days. A child with severe anxiety forced into school will sit there frightened at their desk for the whole school day and be incapable of learning because of their fear. That’s not a good situation, and a reason why parents choose home schooling over their child and themselves being bullied to attend.
SENDCO expertise varies within schools.
In many schools there’s too many senior leaders and just one SENDCO to deal with a huge and increasing number of pupils requiring help.
Hope you all watched the Chris Packham programme on BBC Inside the autistic mind to give you some insight.
thank you so much for taking the time to leave such a full comment, you clearly have a lot of insight and we will forward your comments to that part of the service. The Chris Packham programme has been widely publicised around Dorset Council, but thanks for the prompt on that too.
This is a very good point and something I am currently struggling with. My daughter is attending a Dorset secondary school and I am shocked at the lack of support and specialist interventions or resources our school is willing to offer. Currently I am facing the difficult decision to move her to a Poole school which seems to offer something with regard to some quite space and smaller classes and even an acknowledgment that crippling anxiety is a major factor in a lot of cases of poor attendance. ‘tough love’ approach does not work for all students, Particularly children like my daughter who is currently open to intensive CAMHS support.
She is due to take her GCSEs next year predicted to pass and wishes to drop a few subjects to make her life less stressful and pressure. This has been refused by the school which makes me very sad and disappointed that this can be happening still in 2023 with the Equality Act in place.
Thank you very much for taking the time to contact us. I will forward your thoughts to our director for education and I will contact you directly.