In early 2020, parents from 22 Bristol schools whose children had been regularly absent received a text message. Sent by the school, the short message notified them of how many days of school their child had missed, reminding them the new term approaching represented an opportunity to improve attendance. The response to the effort to tackle absenteeism was striking: the proportion of students keeping good attendance records increased by four percentage points to 95 per cent.
The experiment relied on what is known as ‘nudge theory’: the idea that an individual’s choices can be affected by the way their environment is shaped. It is an approach, already shaping various areas of public policy, that a growing body of evidence and expert opinion suggests could tackle absenteeism, according to Lal Chadeesingh, an education specialist at the Behavioural Insights Team.
