Why attendance matters

The start to the new school year continues to go well here at MHS. I’ve enjoyed walking around school, visiting lessons and speaking to students and staff. It’s been great to see how positive and enthusiastic everyone is, a real testament to the ethos of our school.

One of the things that I’m always keen to see at the start of the term is how well students are attending school, especially early on. There’s been some really interesting research recently that suggests that if students take time off in the first few days September, then they are MUCH more likely to have low attendance by the end of the year compared to everyone else. I don’t understand the reasons why, but the trend is pretty strong. Of course it won’t always apply if the reason for the absence is something like a one-off planned medical appointment. However if students don’t come in when they probably could have done, then that could indicate a problem for the longer term.

Bearing this in mind, I was both pleased and concerned to see that our attendance for the first week was around 96.5%. When you compare that to the overall national attendance rate for secondary schools for last year of 90.8% it looks great, but it still means that quite a few students have missed sessions. Some of these will be for genuine reasons, but quite a few won’t be…and I’d be neglecting my duty if I didn’t point it out.

In my assemblies this week and last, I have been speaking to students in years 9, 10 and 11 on the direct impact of attendance on a student’s academic progress. The connection is clear. If you take two students with the same ability, attitude, support etc but one attends school more than the other, then the student who attends more will do better. I guess the reason is probably that no matter how hard they try (assuming they do!), catching up on missed lessons is really hard.

I know there are lots of pressures on families and for some, getting their child to attend school can be a real struggle. We understand this and we have people who can help, so please be in touch if you are worried. Being a teenager is a challenging time, almost as hard as parenting a teenager, but if we can keep promoting good attendance for all our young people then everyone wins.

Have a great weekend, warmer weather is coming!

Joe Barker

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