ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses upon over thirty different and practical schemes which schools can implement to help combat truancy. These ideas are provided as a result of: (a) evidence obtained from the literature; (b) feedback from teachers in schools in England, Scotland and Wales on
inservice training events; (c) data obtained from master’s degree (taught and research) students under
the supervision of the author at Swansea Institute; (d) school-based research projects. Headteachers and teachers reading these ideas may wish to use one or more or a combination of some or most of them as befits the needs of their individual schools. Ideas included in this chapter are:
1 personal and social education programmes; 2 use of foundation programmes; 3 corrective schemes to overcome literacy and numeracy problems; 4 suggestion box schemes; 5 use of classroom assistants; 6 home-school, parent, pupil contracts; 7 use of security firms; 8 use of role play; 9 formation of anti-truancy teams;
10 positive reinforcement and lottery-type schemes; 11 the place of at-risk registers; 12 combating lateness; 13 combating post-registration truancy; 14 return to school policies; 15 managing school transfers properly; 16 clarification of staff roles; 17 use of paging systems;
18 improved recording of attendance; 19 inter-agency co-operation; 20 disaffection: truancy, behaviour and exclusion in relation to alternative
curriculum provision; 21 improving home-school communication; 22 use of social workers in schools; 23 second chance opportunities; 24 use of private schools; 25 improved health checks; 26 appointment of attendance support teachers; 27 appointment of an attendance support secretary; 28 extension of primary school practice; 29 compensatory programmes; 30 supporting teachers and schools in preventing exclusions; 31 mentoring of truants; 32 flexibility of approach. Ideally, these ideas need to be read alongside the Government’s initiatives in Chapter 7 and the ideas contained in the remainder of this book from Chapter 9 onwards. Taken collectively, they provide schools with an abundance of upto-date information and schemes which really do work when put into practice effectively.
