Good attendance is crucial for a child’s success at school. Whilst teachers will repeatedly explain methods and facts pupils need to know, nothing beats the first time it is taught.
In fact it has been proven to aid good grades. The Department for Education published a report on the link between absence and attainment in key stage 2 and KS4 in March 2016 and found that “pupils with no absence are 1.3 times more likely to achieve level 4 or above, and 3.1 times more likely to achieve level 5 or above, than pupils that missed 10-15 per cent of all sessions”.
Attendance rewards can play an important role in improving and maintaining attendance, including educating pupils and parents about its importance, especially when there are some pupils who are missing considerable amounts of school.
Rewards can be a useful way to encourage attendance. The key is finding methods which work for your school.
Some schools choose to give out 100% attendance award only to reward those with perfect attendance, whilst others choose a bronze, silver and gold option.
Some choose to reward punctuality as well as attendance, with perhaps stickers for being in time all week, or all term.
A popular choice is our ‘everyday counts’ postcards, which can be sent home to parents were absenteeism is an issue, to remind parents of the importance of attendance. They simply say
[Name] has missed [x] days of school this term. There is a clear and proven link between attendance and attainment, and we are concerned that future absences will begin to have a negative impact on their progress and achievement. Please ensure that your child attends school as much as possible.
Most of our rewards can be personalised, so if the message isn’t right for your school, get in touch and let us know what you would want the postcard to say
Some schools have found that rewarding classes rather than individuals can be more effective, and offer attendance trophies for the best class or treats for classes with above 97% attendance.
This is a tool used by many teachers to encourage good behaviour in the classroom, with rewards for the whole class, if all pupils achieve agreed levels of behaviour.
If you can’t find an attendance reward which would work for your school, please get in touch, and see if we can help.