The evidence base behind attendance interventions

Discussion of the ​“attendance crisis” in schools is virtually impossible to avoid at the moment, it has escaped the confines of the edu-sphere and is regularly a topic of main stream news and debate. Official DfE figures for the autumn term show that persistence absence remains at 20.1% across the country, however when zooming into secondary schools this number increases to 24.6% and becomes even more concerning when looking at FSM-eligible students where the number hits a worrying 33%.

The question is…how to solve a problem like attendance? Low attendance is a multi-faceted problem, with multiple causes and influences and there is also a dearth of research into the best strategies for schools to take in their efforts to improve it. In March 2022, the EEF published a Rapid Evidence Assessment of Attendance Interventions, and have since begun to develop a suite of resources to support school leaders in addressing attendance. The EEF stresses that more research is needed in this field and that the resources available are a best bet approach, not a sure-fire way to improve attendance. The review begins by highlighting that:

There is large variation in the strategies that have been researched with the aim of improving pupil attendance
The overall quality of the evidence is weak
Many of the researched intervention lacked the sufficient evidence to reach a conclusion on their effectiveness.
However it does state that some intervention do show some promise.