Improving School Attendance project - Dundee City Council: Planning the project

This section includes information on the planning process, including roles and responsibilities, governance arrangements and outcomes of the project.

What staff were involved , what were the roles and responsibilities and how did you involve school staff/teachers?

School and family development workers are the first point of contact for families. They make phone calls to parents to explain the nature of the group and start to develop a relationship with parents to gain support. School and family development workers also delivered the group programme in its entirety and liaised with teaching staff around progress. Teaching staff would record and monitor the amount minutes missed by children and young people and relay this information to development workers for tracking and analysis. Referrals to group were processed by workers also.

School staff facilitate attendance meetings took place monthly and refer children and young people that were suitable for this group.

What were the key parts of the project that you planned?

The key parts are to operate a regular group for identified children and young people that provide opportunities for them to enjoy being in school and improve their attendance.

What were the shared expectations with school and what were your outcomes?

Expectations were agreed by school staff and the school and family development workers from the outset. These focused on providing an enticing offer, through a new approach, for the children and young people to come to school.

This was mirrored in classrooms by teaching staff who looked to provide a more enticing learning in the classroom environment to improve attendance for those identified. Teachers did this as part of a curriculum design approach linked to the “push and pull” of what encourages children and young people to attend.

Much of this was built on an understanding that cold phone calls and letters do not work.

Outcomes:

Reduced number of minutes lost by children and young people with barriers to attendance
Increased attendance of targeted group of children and young people

How was the project managed?

The Plan Do Study Act (PDSA) model was used to ensure the project’s quality. Session plans and recording sheets were used for project consistency. The groups were reviewed based on feedback and changed depending on need.

Data sharing was agreed with key data shared between development worker staff and school leadership. Data was also broken down into monthly chunks for analysis to measure progress.