School staffs’ experiences of supporting children with school attendance difficulties in primary school: a qualitative study

ABSTRACT

Children’s absence from primary school is associated with lower attainment and social difficulties, and persistent absence at this age often continues or worsens as children progress into secondary education. It is therefore important to intervene early to interrupt this negative trajectory. This study used individual semi-structured interviews to explore the perspectives of eight members of primary school staff, who had experience supporting children with difficulty regularly attending school, from both mainstream and special primary schools in England. Data were analysed using thematic analysis. Participants perceive school non-attendance to be a complex and challenging issue that can have a significant negative impact, and can be caused and maintained by multiple factors related to the child, family and school/education. Participants believe prevention is key and identify several different social/emotional and learning-focused interventions they have used to support children to attend school regularly, with varying degrees of success. Participants emphasise that success of any intervention relies strongly on collaboration between parents, school staff and other agencies involved. Findings from this study suggest that sufficient resource, early intervention, development of a school community, collaboration with families, liaison with other professionals and targeted evidence-based strategies are all important in improving attendance in this age range.

KEYWORDS:

• school attendance
• mental health
• primary school
• teachers
• qualitative

Acknowledgments

PW was supported by a Medical Research Council (MRC) Clinical Research Training Fellowship (G1002011) for this research and is currently supported by an NIHR Postdoctoral Research Fellowship (PDF-2016-09-092). The study was supported by the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Clinical Research Network. The views expressed in this publication are those of the authors and not necessarily those of the NIHR, NHS or the UK Department of Health and Social Care.

Special thanks to the participants for dedicating their time and sharing their experiences.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Ethical statement

Ethical approval for this project was granted by the School of Psychology and Clinical Language Sciences (PCLS) Ethics Committee at the University of Reading. Written informed consent was obtained from all participants. A pseudonym was generated for each participant, which have been used throughout this paper. No participant identifiable information has been included.

Data access statement

The data that supports the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author, PW, upon reasonable request.

Additional information

Funding

This project was undertaken as part of AC’s MSc dissertation and received no external funding.

Notes on contributors

Amethyst Cunningham

Amethyst Cunningham is a Children’s Wellbeing Practitioner in the Getting Help Team within Berkshire CAMHS

Kate Harvey

Kate Harvey is a Professor of Health Psychology in the School of Psychology and Clinical Language Sciences at the University of Reading

Polly Waite

Polly Waite is an Associate Professor of Clinical Psychology in the School of Psychology and Clinical Language Sciences at the University of Reading and the Department of Experimental Psychology and Department of Psychiatry at the University of Oxford