OllieBray.com

Attendance

I was reading this article in the Guardian Unlimited this morning about 1 in 5 pupils play truant from school in England. In East Lothian we have taken significant measures to try and reduce the level of truancy in our schools. One of the ways that we have done this is by using Truancy Call and automated system that will text or phone patents is their son / daughter does not register in the mornings. This has help significant reduce the levels of truancy within the secondary sector (I’m not sure if they use the same system for primary?).

Attendance is directly related to attainment. Looking at the examination results last year it was clear that the few pupils that left Musselburgh Grammar School with fewer than 5 Standard Grades (1-6) were low attendees. Were as our many successful candidates had a high attendance.

As well as truancy call and our guidance staff chasing absence discrepancies the school has put in other mechanisms to help maintain high levels of attendance. One of the systems is the merit certificate where students are awarded for perfect or near perfect attendance during the year (they also get a pen!). The other successful system in the ‘breakfast bus’. Each morning the school minibus goes around and picks up about a dozen pupils who have difficulties coming into school. There is also an opportunity for pupils to get their breakfast when they arrive.

I am interested to find out the other mechanisms that schools have put in place to help ensure high attendance. Marie Stubbs had some interesting ideas on this during her presentation at SETT – my favourite suggestion was ‘you just have to make the children want to come to school!’ let me know your ideas.

Lady Marie Stubbs

I really enjoyed Marie Stubb’s key note presentation at SETT on Wednesday. I am now keen to read her book 'Ahead of the Class'.

Here’s a bit of background on Marie from the SETT website:

In 1995 St. George's Roman Catholic Secondary School in Maida Vale became notorious when its headmaster, Philip Lawrence, was murdered just outside the school gates. After the tragedy, standards plummeted as the school spiralled further into chaos and was placed on 'Special Measures' by Ofsted. In March 2000 it was facing permanent closure when Marie Stubbs was persuaded out of retirement to lead the task force given just four terms to turn the school around.

Fundamentally Marie’s presentation was about change. The thing that I took most from the presentation was the message that teachers and schools from time to time need to go back and have a think about what they are really about. As education and children change (and I believe they do change over time) it is necessary to engage school staff in a new agenda. I think a lot of the points from Marie’s presentation will help me prepare for the implementation of the Curriculum for Excellence (which in my mind is still a little bit un-clear).

Marie asked the following reflective questions of her staff at the start of her time at St. Georges:

• What do classrooms mean?
• What does a department mean?
• What do we want to get from school? (students and staff?)
• What is a good school?
• What is needed for a good community and how can a school fit in?
• How can the diversity of all pupils be valued equally?

What other questions should we ask ourselves as school during our own time of education change in Scotland?

SETT 2006

Well it’s been a good day at SETT. I was speaking at the Partners in Learning presentation this morning on the GEOCASTS project and then did a small slot on Google Earth at Teach Meet this evening. I am currently blogging this from The Goat, before making the journey back to Edinburgh.

It was also a delight to catch up with some students from Musselburgh Grammar and Knox Academy who have been helping film the event on behalf of Learning and Teaching Scotland.

The good thing a bit about SETT is that it is a good opportunity to catch up with lots of people. It was nice to run into lots of edubloggers and the guys from Young Scot, the army defence team presentation service and boardworks. It was also great to bump into Colin Sutherland and Gordon Brown + a few other familiar faces.

This is my first proper post on my new typepad blog. I am grateful to Paul Seys for re-directing my service. I hope the blog to be a little more active from the start of October. We have been busy since the start of term with moving house. I am told that we have been connected to a phone line today and this means we will be back on-line sometime within the next 10 days.

More soon…