Attendance matters. But so do the children behind the statistics.
School attendance is important. I don’t think many people would disagree with that.
Being in school gives children opportunities to learn, build friendships, develop confidence and feel part of a community. Regular attendance can make a real difference to educational outcomes, and schools are right to take it seriously. But I believe we need to have a much bigger conversation about how we encourage attendance, what we choose to reward, and who might be left behind in the process. Because when we start rewarding children for achieving 100% attendance, we need to stop and ask ourselves a question:
Are we celebrating commitment and resilience, or are we rewarding circumstances that some children simply cannot control? Not every absence tells the same story. Behind every attendance figure is a child. And behind every absence, there may be a story we know nothing about.
A child might miss school because of a medical appointment, a chronic health condition or a hospital visit. Another might be recovering from an illness and need time to rest. Some children live with disabilities or conditions that make regular attendance more complicated. There are children who take on caring responsibilities at home. Children who experience domestic abuse or instability within their families. Children who need to observe important religious or cultural occasions. And children who have opportunities to represent their school, county or country in sport or other activities.
Some circumstances are visible. Others are hidden behind closed doors. And sometimes, a child is simply too unwell to attend school. These children are not necessarily disengaged. They are not necessarily lacking motivation. They are not less deserving of recognition, encouragement or belonging. Yet when a school celebrates perfect attendance through competitions, raffles or prize-based campaigns, what message might it unintentionally send to those who cannot achieve it? That their efforts don’t count? That their circumstances make them less deserving? Or, perhaps most damagingly, that they are somehow the problem?
When good intentions create unintended consequences
I understand why schools introduce attendance reward schemes. Schools are under pressure to improve attendance, meet targets and ensure pupils receive the education they deserve. Rewards can seem like a positive, straightforward way to motivate children. When I was a school governor many years ago when the children were at junior schoo, I asked the question, why are you rewarding this and the reply from the deputy head was: Because it works. And I am not suggesting that schools should never celebrate attendance or recognise pupils’ efforts. But good intentions do not automatically mean that a policy is inclusive. Imagine being a child who has worked incredibly hard to attend school while managing a health condition, only to miss a day because you need medical care. Imagine being a young carer who has responsibilities at home that other children never have to think about.
Imagine finally recovering from an illness, returning to school and discovering that your attendance record means you are already excluded from the next reward. Or imagine being a child who has pushed through feeling unwell because you desperately want to qualify for a prize. What are we teaching these children?
There is also a wider public health consideration. Encouraging children to attend at all costs can create pressure to come to school when they are ill. This can put other pupils, staff and their families at risk, particularly those who are medically vulnerable. We should never create a culture in which a child feels that staying home when they are genuinely unwell means they have failed.
A healthy attendance culture should encourage children to be in school when they are able to be there, not make them feel guilty when they cannot. Inclusion is more than treating everyone the same One of the things I feel most strongly about is that inclusion is often misunderstood. Treating every child identically does not always mean treating every child fairly. Children have different needs, different circumstances and different barriers to overcome. True inclusion means recognising those differences and creating an environment in which every child has a fair opportunity to feel valued and succeed.
A policy might appear equal on the surface because every pupil is given the same opportunity to win a prize. But if some pupils are unable to participate because of circumstances beyond their control, is that genuinely inclusive? Equality and fairness are not always achieved by applying exactly the same measure to everyone. Sometimes, fairness means recognising that children are starting from different places.
Schools have a responsibility to consider how their policies affect pupils with disabilities and other protected characteristics, alongside their wider duties to promote equality and inclusion. The Equality Act 2010 is an important part of that conversation, although whether a particular policy breaches the law depends on its circumstances and implementation. My point is not that every attendance reward scheme is unlawful. It is that schools should carefully consider whether their approach creates unnecessary barriers, reinforces disadvantage or leaves particular groups of pupils feeling excluded.
We should be asking these questions before a child is made to feel that they do not measure up. Because sometimes, resilience looks different. I keep coming back to one particular example.
Imagine a young girl who manages to attend school throughout a difficult week despite experiencing a heavy period for the first time since menstruation began. For some people, getting through the school week might seem ordinary. Nothing remarkable. Just another week at school. But for that young girl, it might have taken courage, determination and a great deal of emotional energy. She might have felt anxious, embarrassed or uncomfortable. She might have had to navigate something new while trying to concentrate on lessons and fit in with her peers. For her, getting through that week could have been a significant achievement.
Would a perfect-attendance certificate recognise that resilience? Would a raffle ticket acknowledge the effort it took? Would the attendance statistics tell us anything about what she had overcome? Probably not. And this example is about so much more than menstruation. It is about all the things children navigate that adults may never see.
The child who comes to school feeling anxious. The child who has struggled at home. The child who is learning to manage a disability. The child who finds social situations difficult but keeps trying to make friends. The child who returns after a period of absence and works hard to catch up. Sometimes, the greatest achievements are not the ones that appear on a certificate or a spreadsheet. Sometimes, the achievement is simply getting through the day. And sometimes, the most important thing an adult can do is notice.
What message are we sending about success?
I want children to want to attend school because they feel safe there. Because they know they matter. Because they have friends who are pleased to see them, teachers who believe in them and opportunities to discover what they are capable of. Of course, rewards can be enjoyable. There is nothing inherently wrong with celebrating positive behaviours or giving children something to work towards. But we need to think carefully about what we choose to reward and why. If we make perfect attendance the gold standard, we risk confusing an outcome with an individual’s effort. We risk overlooking children who are working incredibly hard but cannot meet that particular measure. And we risk creating a situation where children focus on maintaining a perfect record rather than listening to their bodies, asking for help or recognising when they need support. Attendance figures can tell us something useful about patterns across a school. They cannot tell us everything about a child’s life, their determination, their wellbeing or their potential. A statistic can measure attendance. It cannot measure a child’s worth. What could schools do differently? I am not arguing that schools should abandon their efforts to improve attendance. Quite the opposite. I believe we can encourage attendance more effectively when children feel genuinely included, supported and understood.
Here are a few ways schools could approach this differently.
1. Recognise effort, not just perfection.
Celebrate improvement, perseverance, engagement and the effort pupils make to overcome barriers. A child who has worked hard to improve their attendance deserves encouragement, even if they have not reached 100%.
2. Make reward schemes more inclusive.
Before launching an initiative, consider which pupils might be unintentionally excluded. Could the school recognise different forms of progress and achievement rather than making a perfect attendance record the main route to recognition?
3. Build a culture of understanding around absence.
When a pupil misses school, the starting point should be curiosity and support, not assumptions about motivation. Schools should seek to understand the barriers a child is facing and work with families to address them.
4. Protect children’s health and dignity.
Pupils should feel able to stay home when they are genuinely unwell, seek help when they need it and approach staff about sensitive issues without fear of embarrassment or judgement. Practical support matters, but so does the way that support is delivered.
5. Listen to children and families.
Ask pupils how attendance initiatives make them feel. Listen to parents and carers who understand the challenges their children face. Involve the school community in finding solutions that encourage attendance without creating unnecessary shame or exclusion.
6. Recognise the whole child.
Celebrate kindness, progress, creativity, courage, contribution and the small victories that might otherwise go unnoticed. Children need to know that they are valued for far more than the number of days they spend in a classroom.
These approaches do not mean lowering expectations. They mean recognising that supporting attendance is about understanding children, removing barriers and helping them access education.
Let’s stop asking only who has perfect attendance
Perhaps the question we should be asking is not simply, “Which pupils have attended every day?” Perhaps we should also ask:
- Which pupils have overcome significant barriers to attend?
- Which children need additional support to access their education?
- Who is struggling quietly?
- Which pupils have made progress that deserves recognition?
- Do our policies help every child feel that they belong?
These questions might not produce the same neat statistics, but they could tell us far more about the culture we are creating.
Schools should be places where children feel seen, not judged. Places where they are encouraged to learn, supported when they struggle and celebrated for the individuals they are becoming. And that requires us to look beyond attendance figures.
Every child deserves to feel that they belong
I know attendance matters. I know schools face real challenges in ensuring pupils receive the education they need. I also know that improving attendance requires commitment from schools, families and the wider community. But I believe we can pursue that goal without making children feel that an absence diminishes their achievements or their value.
We can encourage regular attendance while showing compassion. We can recognise progress without creating unnecessary competition. We can set high expectations while acknowledging that life is not the same for every child.
Most importantly, we can stop assuming that a child who does not achieve perfect attendance has somehow fallen short. Because we do not know every child’s story. We do not know what they have faced before arriving at the school gates, what they are carrying with them into the classroom or what it has taken for them to get there at all. So yes, let’s encourage attendance. Let’s help children build positive relationships with school. Let’s celebrate the joy of learning, friendship and belonging. But let’s also celebrate the child who keeps trying, the child who returns after illness, the child who asks for help and the child who makes progress in ways that might never appear in an attendance report.
Let’s recognise resilience, determination, kindness and courage. Let’s celebrate the effort behind the achievement, not just the achievement itself.
Because school should be about so much more than being present. It should be about belonging. And every child deserves to know that they matter, whether their attendance record is 100% or not.
