Educational Review, Vol. 55, No. 3, 2003

Strategic Approaches to Tackling SchoolAbsenteeism and Truancy: the traffic lights(TL) scheme

KEN REID, Swansea Institute of Higher Education, Swansea, UK

ABSTRACT Some secondary schools have experienced significant problems relatedto pupils’ attendance over a considerable period of time. Therefore, it has provednecessary to start to develop and implement innovative long-term strategic ap-proaches to tackling truancy and other forms of non-attendance from school. Thisarticle focuses upon the traffic lights (TL) scheme which has been formulated tomonitor and manage pupils’ attendance within schools in a more controlled manner.The conventional approach to introducing the TL scheme is described. This isfollowed by two variations of the scheme adapted by schools for their own purposes.Evidence from each of the three utilisations of the TL scheme has suggested thatoverall attendance within the schools has been significantly improved with gains ofaround 8% reported. Finally, the article illustrates how the TL scheme can beadapted to help reduce potential cases of exclusion.

Background

Evidence from research indicates that some schools have disproportionately highlevels of truancy and other forms of absenteeism (Reid, 1985, 1986, 1987, 1988,1999, 2000; O’Keefe et al., 1993). Some schools have experienced these problemsconsistently over a 30-year period despite all their best endeavours (Reid, 2002a,chapter 2). Therefore, it has become apparent that in order to combat truancy andabsenteeism within some schools, it is first necessary to change pupils, parents andteachers’ attitudes towards these schools as well as the pervading culture and ethos.The Scottish Council for Research in Education Study (SCRE, 1995) manifestlyshowed the clearest possible link between attendance and performance at every phaseof schooling from the infant and primary stages to the later years of secondaryeducation.

Most recent research on truancy and absenteeism from school has focused uponindividual facets of the problems and upon the associated consequences of thebehaviour. Osler et al. (2002) for example, have suggested that truancy is a form of‘self-exclusion’ on the part of girls. Truancy and/or school absenteeism has beenfound to be closely linked with deprivation (Zhang, 2003), a number of childhoodpathologies (Woodward & Fergusson, 2000) including running away (de Man,2000), disaffection and young offending (Ball & Connolly, 2000), alcoholism(Wichstrom, 1998; Miller & Plant, 1999), disturbed adolescent development (Baer,

ISSN 0013–1911 print; 1465–3397 online/03/030305-17 2003 Educational Review

DOI:10.1080/0013191032000118956

306 K. Reid

1999), parenting styles (McNeal, 1999), pre-court sentencing information (Ball &Connolly, 1999), gang membership (Fritsch et al., 1999), drug usage (Lloyd, 1998),early conduct disorders (Fergusson & Horwood, 1998), exclusion from school(Bratby, 1998; Audit Commission, 1998) health factors (Michaud et al., 1998),pupils’ personalities (Jones & Francis, 1995) and attitudes (Lewis, 1995), behaviourand levels of self-esteem and academic self-concept as well as attitudes towardsparents and teachers (Reid, 1999).

Although there is a comparative absence of articles focusing upon good practicein dealing with individual pupil’s case histories of absenteeism and in promotingwhole-school approaches to combating truancy and absenteeism (OFSTED, 2001;Reid, 2002a), some new studies are beginning to emerge. For example, Orr-Munro(2002) has reported on the Safer Schools Partnership plans to station police officersin schools. This is in response to the finding that truants from schools are at theepicentre of day-time street crime. Whilst police see the scheme as vital, teachers aremore cautious. In another project, school-based family social work schemes helpedto halve rates of truancy in project schools (Pritchard & Williams, 2001). Malcolm(1996), Blyth (1999) and McCormack (1999) all make valuable suggestions for staffin schools on how to improve attendance utilising such ideas as role play and dramaworkshops.

However, implementing long-term strategic approaches to combat poor attendanceis a relatively new idea. There is little, if any, previous research having beenundertaken into these schemes (Reid, 2002a). Nevertheless, there is some evidencefor their potential (Reynolds, 1996). In fact, the potential of these schemes is almostas important for stressing the possibility of promoting positive school change, andproviding an appropriate monitoring structure for tackling the issues, as anythingelse. The real intention should be to use the conceptual base and processes involvedin the procedure to attempt to reduce rates of truancy and absenteeism within schoolsand/or Local Education Authorities (LEAs).

The evidence contained in this article is especially important for those headteach-ers and teachers, education welfare officers, education social workers, learningmentors, classroom assistants and personal advisers who operate in schools or LEAswith a history of serious, long-term attendance problems. It is currently surprising tofind how many schools and LEAs have attendance issues as one of, or the mostimportant criticism, of their recent OFSTED inspections. Consequently, this aspectoften becomes the first or second item on their subsequent action plans. In practice,a considerable number of schools and LEAs have very little idea about how toovercome their major attendance difficulties.

Despite this, there is abundant evidence of more good practice taking place withinLEAs and schools than ever before. Most LEAs promote their own policy documentson attendance, of which Blackpool (2002), Birmingham (2002) and Staffordshire(2002) are three good examples. Equally, the vast majority of schools now havepolicies on school attendance although many of these are deficient in some aspectssuch as including appropriate reintegration and return to school strategies (Reid,2002a). Also, there is often little synergy between LEA guidelines and those of localschools (Reid, 2003b). In fact, typically within LEAs, most schools have their ownfreestanding documents which are entirely different from one another.

New initiatives concerned with tackling truancy and school absenteeism haveproliferated in recent years. Currently, in England, these initiatives include attend-ance aspects in such major developments as the Connexions Service, Education

307Tackling School Absenteeism and Truancy

Action Zones, Excellence in Cities, On Track, Pupil Support Grants, Children’sFund, Sure Start, changes in court procedures and fines, electronic registrationschemes, truancy buster awards, cross-Whitehall groups to combat the link betweentruancy and crime, truancy ‘sweeps’ as well as a host of youth participation andcommunity projects and local shopping centre schemes as well as selected LEAsreceiving specialist payments in order to improve attendance and behaviour withinschools in their area (Reid, 2002a). In addition, there is currently much pioneer worktaking place within the 14–19 curriculum as attempts are made to find relevant andalternative curriculum schemes. For example, the Mountain Ash Out-of-SchoolLearning Project is one example of how successful alternative curriculum projectscan raise pupils’, parents’ and the local communities’ perceptions of schooling aswell as promote good attendance and behaviour amongst a group of less able,deprived and disaffected pupils (Reid, 2002b, 2002c, 2002d). Unfortunately, much ofthe good local practice which exists is uncoordinated and there is also very littleevidence of good practice in schools in the existing literature (O’Keefe et al., 1993;Reid, 2003a). While any number of appropriate short-term strategies are in place, itis clear that most of these, with the possible exception of first day response schemes,are making very little difference to overall local and national rates of daily attend-ance within schools. In fact, some LEAs are privately reporting recent rises in theirown levels of non-attendance possibly because of the longer term effects of thenational curriculum (Sheffield, 2001).

England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have all started to follow their ownseparate paths in the search for solutions on truancy and school absenteeism as theeffects of asymmetric devolution begin to bite. In England, for example, fast-trackpunishment schemes for parents of truants are being trialled. In Northern Irelandprocesses are in place to significantly increase the number of education welfareofficers involved in attendance cases. In Scotland, electronic registration schemes arein much wider usage.

In Wales, the Welsh Assembly established a Task Force to produce a Report onreducing truancy and absenteeism in both the short- and long-term (Welsh Assembly,2002, 2003). Its key short-term recommendations are:

(a) to simplify the Welsh Assembly Government’s guidance on clarifying absence asindicated in Circular 3/99;

(b) to establish how many primary schools have readily available figures on attend-ance rates;

(c) to commence an audit of the methods of passing information between primaryand secondary schools on individual pupils’ attendance;

(d) to undertake an audit and evaluation of LEAs’ spending on attendance issues,particularly the destination of GEST funding and the pilot projects for tacklingdisaffection;

(e) to undertake an audit of schools’ and LEAs’ attendance policies, how up-to-datethese are and how well they link together;

(f) to consider the approaches to be used in pursuing legal action on parental-con-doned cases;

(g) to perform truancy sweeps on a regular basis in each LEA.

The main long-term recommendations are:

308 K. Reid

(a) to review and cost the extent of electronic registration schemes throughout Walesand to develop a strategy for extending its use to an appropriate standard;

(b) to review the funding, role and responsibilities of the education welfare servicein Wales to include professional development;

(c) to clarify and simplify the funding streams used to tackle truancy in Wales;(d) to establish systems to share good and innovative practice between professions

on tackling truancy in Wales;(e) to carry out a pilot study on reducing absence in two schools to assess the extent

to which this is possible thereby informing future funding;(f) to increase the level of intervention at primary school level;(g) to develop a framework for multi-agency working, including the necessary

training elements;(h) to review the process of taking attendance cases through magistrates’ courts,

including the link between magistrates’ clerks and the educational welfareservice as well as the timetable for hearing attendance cases.

The purpose of this article therefore, is to provide a whole-school, long-termstrategic approach to improving attendance within schools. Ideally, the traffic lights(TL) scheme should be compared and contrasted with the Secondary School ThreeGroup (SSTG) and Primary Secondary Colour Coded (PSCC) formats (Reid, 2003c,2003d) as staff and LEAs may prefer implementing one to the other. Whereas theSSTG and PSCC schemes are closely linked to attainment, the TL scheme isexclusively an attendance strategy although it can be adapted to monitor behaviouraland exclusion policies as well (see later).

Methodology

The methodology followed within schools is action-orientated towards findingappropriate school-based solutions utilising a number of key principles, the TLstructure and local circumstances. Thus far, the scheme has been implemented intoselected schools using the expertise of the author and staff within the schools alongan in-service paradigm. The specific TL concept has to date not formed part of afunded research project. Rather, it has evolved as a pragmatic response to specificschool-based situations in which truancy and absenteeism are significant, and, often,disproportionate problems. The methodological approach involved in implementingthe school-based solutions has been continuously modified in the light of ongoingpractice. Therefore, how the scheme is set up is key to the process.

Normally, in order to resolve attendance issues within a school, a special pro-fessional development day is held. During this period the school’s specific attend-ance issues are discussed and examined in detail. Normally, various possible short-and long-term solutions are put forward. The TL scheme is one of these potentiallong-term strategic solutions. It involves implementing school-change processes.This is achieved by controlling and managing differently some of the input (pupiland pupils’ attendance) variables and by changing some of the internal schoolpolicies and managerial practice on attendance and/or performance-related issues.Essentially, this ‘pragmatic’ methodology, partially based on social anthropologicaland action research theory and practice, has been brought about by school staff,especially headteachers and senior managers, being put into situations where theyhave been required to find their own solutions to externally-imposed governmental

309Tackling School Absenteeism and Truancy

FIG.1. The 5 year cycle using the TL scheme.

targets on attendance; the latter having been raised from 90% to 92% for secondaryschools in September 2002. The adoption of the strategy is often in response toschools fearing difficult OFSTED inspections on attendance or as a consequence ofbeing put into special measures. The evidence suggests that a large number ofschools put into special measures because of attendance issues have very little ideahow to resolve their difficulties (Reid, 2003a) and some have had long periods—20plus years—of experiencing similar problems (Reid, 2002b). Rates of overallattendance and unauthorised absence show considerable variation in league tablesboth at school and LEA levels.

In secondary schools with serious attendance problems, it is methodologicallybetter to introduce the scheme in Year 7 only in the first year of implementation. Inthe second year, the scheme can be extended to Years 7 and 8. After 5 years, thescheme will involve Years 7–11 and all the pupils will have their attendancemonitored and managed in the same way (see Figure 1). It is good practice to ensurethat all pupils and parents are made aware of the school’s policy and practice onmonitoring attendance and the follow-up procedures which will be used when pupilsand their parents fail to adhere to the basic standards which are required.

310 K. Reid

The TL Scheme: the conventional approach

The title ‘traffic lights’ (TL) is given to this scheme because categories of absenteesby level are colour coded by schools for monitoring and enhancement purposes.Figure 2 presents its typical usage although attendance rates within these bands canvary depending upon individual school situations (see later). The red group is madeup of the most serious cases, persistent absentees (less than 70% attendance). Theblue group is comprised of less serious cases of non-attendance although this groupoften contains pupils whose attendance is also notably erratic and inconsistent(between 71 and 84%). The yellow group is made up of occasional absentees. Thegreen group is comprised of regular attenders. The scheme emphasises that attend-ance matters and the school treats the issue of attendance with the importance itdeserves. Evidence from undertaking this work with schools suggests that in Year 7even schools with serious attendance problems tend to have many hardened persist-ent absentees at the age of 11. Traditionally, this level of absenteeism grows with agewith Years 10 and 11 showing the largest numbers of non-attenders.

The aim of the scheme is to monitor the attendance of all of a school’s pupils. Aspolicies begin to bite, the objective is to move pupils into higher attending groups assoon as enhancement processes begin to start to work effectively. Thus, the aspir-ation is to move all red group pupils into the blue group following appropriateintervention strategies adopted by the school and the education welfare service.Then, ideally, moving pupils from the blue group into the yellow group and theyellow group to the green group as attendance improves further. Figure 2 presentsthe ideas diagrammatically and this idea is denoted by the direction of the arrow.

The TL scheme should be introduced at the start of Year 7 in conventional 11–16or 11–18 schools. In schools with an intake from the same primary schools annuallyit is possible to start the scheme at the point of transfer. Ideally, given that 35% ofabsentees begin their histories within primary schools, in ideal circumstances, LEAsand headteachers might consider implementing the scheme from Year 3 in primaryschools onwards. For those secondary schools whose intake comes from a widerange of different primary schools every year, it may not be possible to start thescheme until appropriate information has been collected in Year 7. However, byusing on-line registration systems it is becoming increasingly possible for secondaryschools to be given the attendance records of their new intakes from their localprimary schools in advance.

The TL scheme is heavily dependent upon the willing contribution and partici-pation of every member of staff. This includes the head downwards includingdeputies, heads of year, form tutors, classroom assistants, learning mentors, attend-ance support staff and, crucially, education social workers. Therefore, it utilises awhole-school approach. Implementing the scheme using school-based review pro-cessed as described by Reid (1999, chapters 9 and 10) can be especially helpful.

The monitoring of the pupils is both preventative and therapeutic in natureensuring that pupils fully appreciate that their attendance matters and is crucial fortheir academic progress (SCRE, 1995). It adopts a partial zero-tolerance approachtowards attendance. Once introduced, all the pupils at the school will be aware ofonly one system for monitoring their attendance. As schools follow the monitoringprocesses rigorously, they may well be able to raise their internal standards ofattendance, behaviour and attainment as each of these dimensions is inextricablylinked. For low attendance schools, it affords an opportunity for a fresh start, to

311Tackling School Absenteeism and Truancy

FIG. 2. The TL scheme.

change their internal culture, ethos and hopefully, rid themselves of negative pupil(and parental) attitudes towards regular school attendance. Therefore, the scheme isproactive and raises the importance of pupils’ attendance in a school’s often longlists of current priorities.

The scheme is also flexible. It adopts a colour-coding approach in order tofacilitate pupil and group selection, monitoring and subsequent supportive activities

312 K. Reid

(see Figure 3). The scheme allows for movement up and down between each groupand back into the mainstream green group as pupils’ circumstances improve or viceversa.

The TL scheme also tries to combat the progressive nature of absence. Typically,most schools have more truants and absentees in Years 10 and 11 than in Years 7–9.However, by implementing a process of earlier intervention and monitoring, theopportunity is created to enable erratic attenders to be reintegrated back with regularattenders as their own attendance improves. Ideally, the TL scheme will be operatedalongside appropriate enhancement strategies within a school which are aimed atimproving the academic potential of its less able pupils including its erratic attenders.The scheme also provides a management tool for monitoring attendance (see Figure4).

In practice, two points stand out. First, pupils with minor (but, often, consistent)attendance problems predominate in the majority of schools. Comparatively fewpupils miss more than 50% of school time. In one LEA, the ratio of pupils withminor attendance problems when compared with serious attendance issues (over50%) was 1�7 (Reid, 2003b). Second, boys and girls tend to be manifested more orless equally in most categories of absence. However, more girls than boys tend to beparentally condoned whilst more boys than girls are truants per se (Reid, 1999).

Case Studies of Good Practice: variations on a theme

The TL scheme presented so far is the conventional package. However, the schemecan be adapted to suit individual school’s needs. Therefore, a couple of alternativemodels for using the scheme are now presented.

The East Worthing Project: the RAG scheme

Schools in East Worthing—led by Davison High school—introduced their colour-coded RAG project based on the TL concept in a local clustering arrangement.Included in the federated scheme are Bramber, Lyndhurst, Springfield and Whyte-mead First schools, Downsbrook, Chesswood and Broadwater Middle schools and StAndrew’s and Davison High Schools. All these schools follow the same attendanceguidance and practice after implementing the TL scheme. The Pupil Retention Unit(which specialises in social inclusion policies including reintegration and return toschool strategies) introduced a version of the TL scheme into local schools using thecolour coding for attendance. The project was broadened to include attendanceacross a family of schools including first and middle schools. The idea was toimprove relationships between the school, its parents and non-attenders.

The RAG project uses the same principles and ideas but operates them differently(see Figure 5). In their scheme more than 93% attendance is considered to besatisfactory and equates with green. Between 83 and 92% is amber and taken to bea cause for concern. Less than 82% is red and judged to be unsatisfactory. Davisoninstigated these higher categories because, although it had a serious attendanceproblem, its scale was not considered to be so out-of-control as some schools whichuse the standard format of the scheme as presented in Figure 2.

Significantly, the pupils like the colour-coding scheme. There is strong compe-tition between them to improve and to move ‘up’ groups which facilitates andmotivates improved attendance and attainment. The school operates the system

313Tackling School Absenteeism and Truancy

Bev

erly

09B

96.7

0%G

reen

96.3

9%G

reen

95.9

2%G

reen

95.3

5%G

reen

95.7

6%G

reen

94.9

0%G

reen

Ele

anor

09B

96.7

0%G

reen

96.3

9%G

reen

95.9

2%G

reen

95.3

5%G

reen

94.9

2%G

reen

93.8

8%G

reen

Jenn

y09

B90

.93%

Am

ber

90.6

6%A

mbe

r89

.46%

Am

ber

87.9

8%A

mbe

r87

.29%

Am

ber

85.2

0%A

mbe

rJe

nnif

er09

B95

.88%

Gre

en96

.08%

Gre

en95

.58%

Gre

en95

.35%

Gre

en94

.92%

Gre

en93

.88%

Gre

enL

ouis

e09

B80

.49%

Red

82.8

3%R

ed86

.73%

Am

ber

84.8

8%A

mbe

r82

.65%

Am

ber

82.6

5%R

edE

mm

a09

B86

.54%

Am

ber

86.1

4%A

mbe

r85

.71%

Am

ber

84.5

0%A

mbe

r83

.05%

Am

ber

85.7

1%A

mbe

rJe

nny

09B

98.9

0%G

reen

98.8

0%G

reen

98.6

4%G

reen

98.4

5%G

reen

100.

00%

Gre

en10

0.00

%G

reen

Vic

tori

a09

B98

.35%

Gre

en98

.19%

Gre

en97

.96%

Gre

en97

.67%

Gre

en97

.46%

Gre

en96

.94%

Gre

enL

aila

09B

95.0

5%G

reen

97.5

9%G

reen

97.2

8%G

reen

96.9

0%G

reen

97.4

6%G

reen

96.9

4%G

reen

FIG

.3.

Exa

mpl

eof

am

onito

ring

proc

ess

for

the

TL

sche

me.

314 K. Reid

FIG

.4.

Cum

ulat

ive

sum

mar

y.T

heT

Lsc

hem

eus

edas

am

anag

emen

tto

ol.

315Tackling School Absenteeism and Truancy

FIG. 5. The Davison RAG project model.

alongside a positive rewards scheme to encourage its pupils (e.g. prizes for mostimproved attendance). Contrary to some expectations, the colour-coded labels areinterpreted positively by pupils and parents alike. The school considers there to beno negative connotations from using the labels, only positive benefits.

The Chamberlayne Model

Chamberlayne Park School goes one stage further. It utilises its colour-codingscheme for both attendance and behaviour monitoring and adds in extra codingcategories.

316 K. Reid

The School is a co-educational comprehensive on the south-eastern edge of a largecity in the south of England; there are 850 pupils on roll; 23% of these are on freeschool meals; 51% of the pupils are on the special needs register. The school drawsits pupils mainly from two feeder primary schools. Its location is in an area whichhas considerable social deprivation. The adult unemployment levels for the city arealso high. The school’s average daily attendance hovers around 90%. The school hasraised its attendance target to 93.5%. To facilitate this rise, pupils have beenidentified into the following five bands in order to monitor their attendance (seeFigure 6).

Other versions of the TL scheme have begun to be adopted; some by utilising theideas for work with pupils who have behavioural problems or likely to be excluded(fixed or permanent candidates) as well as with attendance cases. Figure 7 presentsthese ideas diagrammatically using exclusion as the issue. One school in Watfordfound that the ‘safety-net’ nature of the system reduced exclusion rates by approxi-mately two-thirds during the first year of its operation. The school previously hadexclusion rates three and a half times above the national average. Theale GreenCommunity School, for example, an 11–18 school in West Berkshire, has found thatby using ‘staged’ approaches to exclusion, it has not excluded a single pupil forseveral years.

In this version, red cards are immediately given for offences which lead toautomatic exclusion (fixed or permanent). There are two red card offences. The firstis for extreme violent conduct. The second is for persistent serious abuse of schoolrules on the third occasion; the first two having warranted either a blue or yellowcard and both offences having been recorded and the formal warnings being notifiedto pupil and parent(s).

Implications and Conclusions

Utilising and implementing the TL scheme is relatively easy to manage. It iscertainly much less demanding than its sister schemes, the PSCC and STGG schemes(Reid, 2003c, 2003d).

The colour-coding concept provides a high impact visible display which can beused by:

• form tutors: for monitoring attendance, setting targets;• parents: easy to understand, visual, provides them with clear evidence of their

child’s attendance patterns;• pupils: easy to understand, visual, provides guidance, goals and attainable targets;• EWO: helpful to monitor students, and schools within an LEA;• SMT: easy-to-use management tool.

The colour-coding concept is used within participating schools to: raise the school’sprofile (marketing and publicity); ease monitoring processes (form tutor reviewmeetings, heads of year/department, SMT); communicate with parents (attendanceletters home); and, finally, is central to a school’s attendance (and, in theory, anLEAs) policy and policy document.

For example, the Davison scheme has been implemented in West Sussex for allpupils aged from 5 to 16. It creates an ethos that school attendance matters at allages. The Project has the support of the Education Welfare Service, the LEA and thePupil Retention Team. It is becoming increasingly interdisciplinary and multi-disci-

317Tackling School Absenteeism and Truancy

FIG. 6. The Chamberlayne model of the TL scheme.

-

318 K. Reid

FIG. 7. Using the TL scheme for exclusion.

plinary. Since its inception, the Project has won the support of the DfES and beenawarded a Best Practice Research Scholarship for each school involved. A school’scoordinator has been appointed to communicate between the schools, expanding theProject into the local community (cf. Reynolds, 1996; Reid, 2002b, 2002c, 2002d).

Preliminary results using the TL scheme have been encouraging although these

319Tackling School Absenteeism and Truancy

are, to some extent, early days. The author first started applying a form of long-termstrategic approach to schools’ truancy and attendance problems as long ago as 1986.Since then, the various approaches including the TL scheme, have evolved througha number of modifications and manifestations. For example, Beaufort CommunitySchool in Gloucestershire achieved a significant increase in attendance figuresfollowing the implementation of the TL scheme. Results now show an averageattendance for the whole school of 92% compared with 85% immediately prior to thescheme starting. Knowsley LEA has similarly improved its attendance by 5% in itsfirst year since adopting the scheme. Other schools have reported gains of between5 and 8% in Year 7 during the first year of adopting the scheme. Over a 10-yearperiod, the overall attendance for Mountain Ash School rose from 79.4 to 97.4%.During the same period, the School’s GCSE A–C record for five or more passes rosefrom 4 to 45% and is currently on schedule to achieve over 55%. Once again, thisshows the clear link between attendance and achievement (SCRE, 1995). DavisonSchool (see earlier) also reported that their overall attendance rates improved by 8%during the first year of usage. Therefore, evidence is mounting over a significantperiod of time that utilising the TL scheme can help improve pupils’ attendance ratesquite significantly when the appropriate methodology is followed.

Establishing the TL scheme needs careful thought. It requires a whole-schoolapproach in the fullest meaning of the term. Parents need to be briefed on the schemeas part of the preliminary process before their pupils transfer to the secondary school.So do all the pupils. The ‘caring’ message given to the parents and the pupils andhow this is put across are crucial to favourable long-term outcomes.

Ideally, schools will utilise a few short-term approaches alongside this majorlong-term strategic initiative. Choose three or four of the best short-term strategiesoutlined by Reid, (2002a). Three of the most popular apart from first day contact tendto be mentoring (however this is done) and appropriate alternative curriculum andout-of-school learning support (Reid, 2002e). However, whatever works—use it. Thecauses of non-attendance are so varied and diverse that finding similar solutionswhich work effectively in every school situation is not easy (Reid, 1999).

Some schools need to raise the profile of attendance on their agendas. In far toomany schools, attendance is too low on their school development plans. However,variations in practice abound. The TL scheme gives schools a simple and convenientway of raising the profile of attendance in a caring and empathetic manner. Thepotential gains of the scheme far outweigh the disadvantages as the benefits offerschools and their pupils far more than a simple reduction in non-attendance andtruancy. Adopted and set up correctly, it provides a total package. It shows pupils,parents, the community and OFSTED that a school is taking its responsibilities forattendance seriously.

Correspondence: Ken Reid, Deputy Principal, Swansea Institute of Higher Edu-cation, Mount Pleasant Campus, Swansea SA1 6ED, UK. E-mail: k.reid@sihe.ac.uk.

REFERENCES

AUDIT COMMISSION (1998) Misspent Youth, Report (London, The Commission).BAER, J. (1999) Adolescent development and the junior high school environment, Social Work in

Education, 21(4), pp. 238–248.

320 K. Reid

BALL, C. & CONNOLLY, J. (1999) Requiring school attendance: a little used sentencing power, CriminalLaw Review, March, pp. 183–194.

BALL, C. & CONNOLLY, J. (2000) Educationally disaffected young offenders: youth court and agencyresponses to truancy and school exclusion, British Journal of Criminology, 40(4), pp. 594–616.

BIRMINGHAM (2002) School Attendance Policy Document (Birmingham, The LEA).BLACKPOOL (2002) School Attendance Policy Document (Blackpool, The LEA).BLYTH, E. (Ed.) (1999) Improving School Attendance (London, Routledge/Falmer).BRATBY, L. (1998) Exclusion zone, Police Review, 14 August, pp. 16–17.DE MAN, A. F. (2000) Predictors of adolescent running away behaviour, Social Behaviour and

Personality, 28(3), pp. 261–267.FERGUSSON, D. M. & HORWOOD, L. J. (1998) Early conduct problems and later life opportunities, Journal

of Child Psychology and Psychiatry and Allied Disciplines, 39(8), pp. 1097–1108.FRITSCH, E. J., CAETI, T. H. & TAYLOR, R. W. (1999) Gang suppression through saturation patrol,

aggressive curfew, and truancy enforcement: a quasi-experimental test of the Dallas anti-ganginitiative, Crime and Delinquency, 45(1), pp. 122–139.

JONES, S. H. & FRANCIS, L. J. (1995) The relationship between Eysenck’s personality factors and attitudetowards truancy among 13–15 year olds in England and Wales, Personality and Individual Differences,19(2), pp. 225–233.

LEWIS, E. (1995) Playing hookey, Police Review, 103(5344), pp. 22–24.LLOYD, C. (1998) Risk factors for problem drug use: identifying vulnerable groups, Drugs: Education,

Prevention and Policy, 5(3), pp. 217–232.MALCOLM, H. (1996) Understanding Truancy (Edinburgh, SCRE).MCCORMACK, I. (1999) Going to the Dogs (Carlisle, Carel Press).MCNEAL, R. B. (1999) Parental involvement as social capital: differential effectiveness on science

achievement, truancy and dropping out, Social Forces, 78(1), pp. 117–144.MICHAUD, P. A., DELBOS-PIOT, I. & NARRING, F. (1998) Silent dropouts in health surveys: are

non-respondent absent teenagers different from those who participate in school-based health surveys,Journal of Adolescent Health, 22(4), pp. 326–333.

MILLER, P. & PLANT, M. (1999) Truancy and perceived school performance: an alcohol and drugs studyof UK teenagers, Alcohol and Alcoholism, 34(6), pp. 886–893.

OFSTED (2001) Improving Attendance and Behaviour in Secondary Schools, HMI Report No. 2429(London, OFSTED).

O’KEEFE, D., et al. (1993) Truancy in English Secondary Schools (London, DfES).ORR-MUNRO, T. (2002) Back to school, Police Review, 14 June, pp. 22–24.OSLER, A., STREET, C., LALL, M. & VINCENT, K. (2002) Not a Problem? Girls and Social Exclusion

(London, National Children’s Bureau).PRITCHARD, C. & WILLIAMS, R. (2001) A three-year comparative longitudinal study of a school-based

social work family service to reduce truancy, delinquency and school exclusions, Journal of SocialWelfare and Family Law, 23(1), pp. 23–43.

REID, K. (1985) Truancy and School Absenteeism (London, Hodder & Stoughton).REID, K. (1986) Disaffection from School (London, Methuen).REID, K. (1987) Combating School Absenteeism (London, Hodder & Stoughton).REID, K. (1999) Truancy and Schools (London, Routledge).REID, K. (2000) Tackling Truancy in Schools (London, Routledge).REID, K. (2002a) Truancy: Short and Long-Term Solutions (London, Routledge/Falmer).REID, K. (2002b) Evaluation of The Mountain Ash Partnership Out-of-School Learning Project

(Swansea, Swansea Institute of Higher Education).REID, K. (2002c) Evaluation of an Out-of-School Learning Project: The Pupils’ Perspectives (Swansea,

Swansea Institute of Higher Education).REID, K. (2002d) Staff Perspectives of an Out-of School Learning Project (Swansea, Swansea Institute

of Higher Education).REID, K. (2002e) Mentoring with disaffected pupils, Mentoring and Tutoring, 10(2), pp. 153–169.REID, K. (2003a) The search for solutions to truancy and other forms of school absenteeism, Pastoral

Care in Education, 21(1), pp. 3–9.REID, K. (2003b) Improving Attendance Strategies within Sefton, a Report for the LEA (Swansea:

Swansea Institute of Higher Education).REID, K. (2003c) A Long-Term Strategic Approach to Tackling Truancy and Absenteeism from Schools

(The SSTG Scheme) British Journal of Guidance and Counselling (in press).

321Tackling School Absenteeism and Truancy

REID, K. (2003d) A Strategic Approach to Tackling School Absenteeism and Truancy (The PSCCScheme) Educational Studies (in press).

REID, K., et al. (1988) Towards the Effective School (Oxford, Basil Blackwells).REYNOLDS, E. (1996) An In-Depth Analysis of an Initiative to Improve Attendance in a South Wales

Comprehensive School, 2 Vols, unpublished MPhil thesis, Swansea Institute of Higher Education.SCOTTISH COUNCIL FOR RESEARCH IN EDUCATION STUDY (SCRE) (1995) Understanding Truancy: Links

Between Attendance, Truancy and Performance (Edinburgh, SCRE).SHEFFIELD (2001) Making a Mark (Sheffield, Sheffield City Council Internal Report, Sheffield LEA).STAFFORDSHIRE (2002) School Attendance Policy Document (Stafford, The LEA).WELSH ASSEMBLY (2002) The Attendance Task and Finish Group, Final Report (Cardiff, National

Assembly for Wales).WELSH ASSEMBLY (2003) Attendance Task and Finish Group, Provisional Action Plan (Cardiff, National

Assembly for Wales).WICHSTROM, L. (1998) Alcohol intoxication and school dropout, Drug and Alcohol Review, 17(4),

pp. 413–421.WOODWARD, L. J. & FERGUSSON, D. M. (2000) Childhood peer relationship problems and later risks of

educational under-achievement and unemployment, Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry andAllied Disciplines, 41(2), pp. 191–201.

ZHANG, M. (2003) Links between school absenteeism and child poverty, Pastoral Care in Education,21(1), pp. 10–17.