Improving School Attendance project - Dundee City Council: How you knew it worked
This section details the progress and impact of the project, including reviewing evidence against measures of success and consideration of next steps. It also reviews the broader impact of the project, in addition to its original aims, and any unintended consequences.
As groups operated, reports on their minutes lost in school were captured. This data demonstrated that minutes lost reduced throughout their involvement in the programme. This was intersected to attainment data which also demonstrated improvements.
Group data from Aug to April 23/24 showed that overall attendance improved by 1.55% on average with an average decrease of 7 hours and 50 minutes of minutes lost in school.
In regards to attainment data:
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In Numeracy, 62.5% of the group were on track in Aug-Dec. 100% were on track by the end of the intervention
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In Reading 75%, of the group were on track in Aug-Dec. 87.5% were on track by the end of the intervention
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In Writing 25%, of pupils in the group were on track in Aug-Dec. 50% were on track by the end of the intervention
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In Listening and Talking, 87.5% of the group were on track in Aug-Dec. 100% were on track by the end of the intervention
Pre and post engagement feedback was captured from staff which highlighted positive changes as a result of the group work. Children and young people’s views were captured, demonstrating they were much happier and social in school. This was corroborated by staff observations.
Other areas were improved such as happiness and social confidence however most data that was captured focused on attendance and attainment.
Children and young people sometimes don’t want to want to leave the group after it comes to an end because they enjoy it so much.
The groups in primary link to the transition approach for high school, due to the staff being split between these two settings. It adds an extra layer of consistency in the overall project ambition.
As detailed earlier minutes lost, attainment data, feedback from children, young people and parents, observations from class teachers and valuations are all triangulated.
In future the staff hope to target different younger children in the primary setting using a similar model. They are hoping to showcase the group work to parents through open mornings, alongside highlighting key messages around the importance of attendance to them in ways that are clear to understand e.g. Showing numbers 80% attendance = 8 weeks off, hitting home these messages.
There is continual work planned in upskilling more school support staff in the approaches used.
