Background

Kirkliston Primary School is outwith Edinburgh city in the town of South Queensferry. It is a large school serving an affluent area with pockets of hidden poverty.

Brunstane Primary School is in Portobello in the west of Edinburgh. The school serves a community which is has 68% of children living in SIMD quintile 1.

Attainment Scotland Funding

Both schools used Pupil Equity Funding: over £50,000.

Rationale

In Edinburgh, tracking and monitoring of attendance is carried out centrally. A senior development officer is responsible for reporting. Schools are red, amber or green (RAG) rated according to overall attendance. Levels of deprivation are also considered. Friday attendance is lower and the ‘Every Day Counts’ campaign emphasises the importance of attending school on Fridays.

The schools chosen for this case study have implemented initiatives which have had a positive impact on attendance.

Brunstane Primary School case study

Brunstane Primary School uses PEF to employ three pupil support officers (PSO). These officers also work in the school as pupil support assistants. As a result, they know the families well. The school also has an education welfare officer (EWO) to support families. Together this team works with the depute head to ensure effective communication and cooperation. They use a targeted approach for families with higher levels of absence.

Home visits made during the COVID-19 lockdown changed the mindset of staff. They became more aware of the levels of poverty experienced by some families.

The school places a huge emphasis on the school values and relationship policy as the central tenet of all they do to support attendance. They place nurturing approaches at the heart of making the school and playground safe and inviting places to be. This is supported by scripts, Zones of Regulation and restorative approaches.

The school also:

• identifies the day which shows the poorest for attendance for each class and hosts a class breakfast on that day
• operates a free breakfast club for over 50 pupils (and rising), fully funded by Greggs the bakers
• operates a ‘grab and go’ food bank

They start each day with an emotional check-in. Expectations are made explicit every day and visual timetables are used in every class.

Staff target praise for improved attendance and understand the importance of daily routines. Targeted approaches support families with higher absence rates.

Class teachers to take responsibility for attendance issues above 90%. Time is allocated in the working time agreement to make phone calls to families.

A pupil-led Friday attendance campaign where teachers and pupils use social media to advertise the learning happening on ‘#Fascinating Fridays’ and encourages attendance.

The headteacher makes effective use of data to support improvements in attendance. The school leadership team, PSOs and the EWO have a robust system in place to address non-attendance. Data is used to identify families where attendance could become an issue and mitigations are put in place. It is seen as the responsibility of all and the link between attendance and attainment is made clear.

Kirkliston Primary School case study

Kirkliston Primary uses Pupil Equity Funding (PEF) to employ a family worker. The family worker engages with families to provide support for barriers preventing attendance. This includes practical help like wake-up calls, collecting pupils from home and home visits.

Further support includes form-filling to access benefits and dealing with housing issues. This promotes good relationships between home and school. All barriers to attendance are considered and mitigated.

Additionally, the school:

• recognises improvement in attendance through sending home praise letters
• examines data for patterns, addressing these in an appropriate way i.e. not a generic response to all
• holds assemblies on a Friday
• shares learning and teaching with parents to emphasise the importance of attending on Friday
• has an attendance policy and flow chart for all staff
• encourages routines
• emphasises the importance of good sleep, the headteacher is ‘Sleep Scotland’ trained
• holds a breakfast club open to families and gives access to a food and toiletries bank
• has a well-established, second-hand uniform policy which includes P1s starting school
• supports families financially to attend events and trips with a ‘pay what you can’ scheme, no families in receipt of free school meals are charged
• operates staff and pupil clubs, built into teachers’ working time agreement

This includes the headteacher who has a well-attended running club which ties into other areas of support like the ‘Foodbank Run’ to raise awareness and de-stigmatise the use of food banks.

The school also sends out a weekly blog from the headteacher which emphasises the importance of attendance. 300 out of the 400 families attending the school access this. The blog includes information about work led by the family support worker, including parent groups to address healthy eating, cooking, housing support.

Most importantly, the school has a well-embedded policy stating that attendance is everyone’s responsibility. This is clearly borne out in the ethos and culture of the school.

Impact

Kirkliston Primary School has improved relationships with families. Overall attendance, as well as attendance on Fridays has improved.

Brunstane Primary School has an improved relationship with families. They too have improved overall attendance and attendance on Fridays.