"The power of welcome cannot be underestimated"

Attendance is one of the top priorities for the Children’s Commissioner for England Dame Rachel de Souza and it’s something that Thrive believes is linked to wellbeing and positive mental health. Since the pandemic, school attendance has been getting worse - in Autumn 2021, 1.7 million children were persistently absent from school – with pupils missing 6.9 per cent of their sessions on average and 1.6 per cent of their sessions for unauthorised reasons. 

The latest episode of Thrive’s Connected podcast focuses on attendance and features insight and tips from Jayne Lowe OBE, managing director of Bright Green Learning. The episode is called Attendance: Simple steps to make improvements. Jayne talks about how the pandemic has affected family and work life meaning that routines have been disrupted which has, in turn, impacted on attendance. She shares practical steps that schools can take to remove barriers such as meeting children away from the main entrance and ensuring they have a suitable area to get ready for school.

Listen in to learn: 

• How to identify and remove barriers that may be making it difficult for children to attend 
• The importance of communicating, repeatedly, to staff and students what good attendance looks like 
• The power of welcomes – and how to welcome a young person back to school if they have been absent
• How and why to use rewards 
• The importance of a whole school approach to attendance 

The podcast has tips for classroom staff and for senior leaders so will be a useful resource to anyone working with attendance in schools. Grab a cuppa and a biscuit and have a listen to find out how you can improve things in your school.