ImpactEd Group updates Understanding Attendance: Targeted research approach to improve pupil attendance

In 2023 ImpactEd Group launched Understanding Attendance – a national research project reviewing attendance rates of over 300,000 pupils and surveys from over 80,000 young people throughout 2023/24 to understand the relationship between pupils’ social. emotional and behavioural measures and their attendance rates. The report provided greater insight into the drivers behind pupil absence at an individual, school, trust, and national level.

Our research to date has shed light on factors such as the importance of belonging and the second transition between Year 7 to Year 8. This evidence base has informed the development of a targeted question set and sophisticated approach to benchmarking. Schools participating in the project will use this to get deeper insight.

What will this look like practically?  

Our national diagnostic aims to provide targeted insights into factors affecting attendance. Using short pupil and parent facing questionnaires, the diagnostic reports on three domains – family and home environment, school environment, and adult and peer relationships.

• Collected through census windows up to once a term, results are contextually benchmarked against the most recent census so that you are comparing like with like throughout the school year.

• We integrate automatically with school management information systems, so that all diagnostic data can be accessed at individual level and by groups such as year group, gender, Pupil Premium and SEND.  

• We also bring together the diagnostic with your attendance data, helping you to identify target groups compared to our national research cohort, and zooming in on the factors that affect your relatively lowest attending groups.

• We provide dedicated 1:1 support from a school partnership manager, who will hold review calls to help you interpret and act on your findings.

• The network includes optional half termly Understanding Attendance online network events, sharing real-life practice and examples.

What has changed in the project?

Our research so far indicates that attendance is highly contextual. There are no quick fixes to pupil absence, and schools and Trusts need tailored insights that helps them understand the drivers of attendance in their setting.

With this in mind the updated version of the project has three major changes:

1. An updated question set – this focuses in more depth on areas such as sleep, parental attitudes, rewards and classroom behaviour, which are both actionable for schools and likely to be linked to attendance

2. Contextual benchmarking – with trends in attendance varying so much by a pupil’s year group and contextual circumstances, comparisons to national data alone can be limited. Our approach helps schools identify their relative high and low attenders, to better target their support.

3. Community of practice – the project will now be designed around regular census windows occurring across the country. Around these windows, and each half-term, regular network and practice sharing events will provide practical insights from school leaders and teachers.

“We have built Understanding Attendance to provide both local and national insights. With the project having supported over 400 schools so far, we are excited to be rolling out a new methodology that should allow for more targeted action at school and Trust level” said Owen Carter, Managing Director of ImpactEd Evaluation. “We are committed to sharing these findings on a national level, supporting the sector as it continues to address the sustained issue of pupil absence”.

We are hosting an information event on the 4th March to share the latest research on absence, our new methodology, and hear from schools sustainably improving attendance.

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