Assessment is learning: the preposition vanishes

Scotland, in common with many countries internationally, has been learning how to align ideas from research with policy and practice. This article considers what Scotland learned from large-scale evaluations of its Assessment is for Learning (AifL) programme and the extent to which this evidence was used to inform future learning within the national programme. More recently, the policy focus in Scotland has shifted to the creation of a new curriculum, Curriculum for Excellence, subsuming AifL. Merging curriculum and assessment innovations brought new challenges in the alignment of curriculum, pedagogy and assessment. Drawing on a Scottish Government-funded research project, Assessment at Transition, designed to identify and explore emerging gaps between practice in schools and local authorities and national curriculum and assessment policy aspirations, the article argues that assessment is learning and explores how formative approaches to evaluation at a national level might be used to prevent countries repeating past mistakes.     

Absent Without Leave: state responses to school non‐attendance

ABSTRACT

This paper considers the changing legal context of school attendance, in relation to the Education Reform Act 1988 and the Children Act 1989. The new Children Act seeks to alter legal and welfare approaches to school non‐attendance, and to ‘decriminalise’ truancy by replacing care orders with education supervision orders. The tensions that exist both within new and existing legislation, and between legislation and its implementation by education and welfare agencies are explored. While the Education Reform Act 1988 has no provisions relating specifically to school attendance, measures such as open enrolment and local management of schools impact indirectly on school non‐attendance. The Act has also contributed to the development of local and national initiatives to reduce truancy levels. Finally, the intended and unintended consequences the enforcement of regular school attendance has on the lives of truants is examined. The development of a deviant career is traced, from the initial act of not attending school, through the regulatory and labelling processes of various agencies, to the final state of being out of school and in care.     

EVALUATION OF A TRUANCY DIVERSION PROGRAM AT NINE AT‐RISK MIDDLE SCHOOLS

Many schools are faced with the prospect of soaring absenteeism rates, despite the use of traditional truancy courts and other legal interventions. A recent trend in the literature has been to explore alternative, hybrid, and multidisciplinary approaches to address the underlying obstacles to school attendance. These programs are often integrated into schools to reduce stigma and transportation burdens on families. The present study involved an evaluation of a truancy diversion program in nine at‐risk middle schools in an ethnically diverse sample. Graduates from the program demonstrated significant declines in internalizing and externalizing behavior problems. In addition, participants and their parents expressed high levels of perceived improvement in academic performance. Academic tutoring was found to differentiate program graduates from nongraduates. Results are preliminary but discussed within the context of the role of school attachment in truancy diversion programs.     

Truants on truancy – a badness or a valuable indicator of unmet special educational needs?

Neil Southwell states that he was, himself, a persistent truant from school. He returned to education as a mature student via an access course and he now lectures in education studies at the University of Northampton. He is currently researching into truancy, its causes and its management and brings to his work an unusual but highly illuminating 'truantist perspective'.
In this article, Neil Southwell reviews the literature on truancy and reveals a complex and contradictory picture. Policy and practice to date have, however, tended to be united in locating responsibility for truancy with truants and their families. Drawing on his own experience and his research into the perspectives of truants, Neil Southwell makes a case for a radically different approach. He argues that truancy can be seen as a key indicator of unmet educational needs and that the issue of truancy will not be addressed effectively until policy makers, practitioners and researchers learn to listen to the voices of truants themselves.     

School attendance in Hertfordshire

In November 1994, the Hertfordshire School Attendance Project, an initiative set up by the local authority's Education Welfare Service with the purpose of promoting regular school attendance, conducted a survey on school attendance in which 12 secondary schools participated. The survey was intended to establish how pupils responded to coming to school; to identify levels of truancy, including post‐registration truancy; to determine the reasons for such truancy; and to assist schools in developing appropriate and effective responses. The survey found that the overwhelming majority of pupils mostly liked school, attended regularly and were mostly happy with the curriculum which they were offered. The truancy that was located was confined mainly to Years 9, 10 and 11; it was neither widespread nor habitual in character, and appeared to be caused primarily by what might be termed ‘lesson difficulty’. That is, the pupil involved either did not like or could not do a particular lesson and/or had a poor relationship with a particular teacher. Post‐registration truancy (PRT) ‐ when the pupil comes to school, registers and then proceeds to miss certain or all lessons ‐ was found to be slightly more prevalent than blanket truancy (BT) ‐ when the child fails to attend school altogether and lacks authorization for failing to do so (these categories of truancy are based on the work of Stoll and O'Keeffe, 1989 and O'Keeffe, 1994). The survey strongly suggested the need for schools to engage in a debate on the nature of some aspects of the curriculum and to develop coherent and consistent whole‐school attendance policies.     

Discipline Reform: The Impact of a Statewide Ban on Suspensions for Truancy

Chronic absenteeism and truancy have been linked to a variety of undesirable outcomes for students including increased risk of dropout, lower test scores, lower educational and social engagement, juvenile delinquency, and substance abuse. One controversial response to truancy is the use of exclusionary discipline, such as out-of-school suspensions (OSS). Out of concern that such a practice is counter-intuitive and likely not effective at improving student engagement or academic outcomes, some states have recently banned this practice altogether. This analysis uses Arkansas as a case study to estimate the impact of a state-level ban on the use of OSS for truancy on attendance—an important measure related to student engagement and opportunity to learn. Using an eight-year panel of student-level data in a difference-in-differences framework, we find no evidence of improvement in attendance for truant students. Implications for policy design, implementation, and evaluation are discussed.     

Evaluation of a truancy court intervention in four middle schools

The effectiveness of a school‐based truancy court intervention in four middle schools in a mid‐sized school district was evaluated. Cumulative data from 185 youth attending a truancy court from 2004 through 2008 were included in the analyses. Results indicated a differential impact of the truancy court intervention depending on truancy severity at baseline. The intervention was most successful in increasing attendance for students with severe truancy, but had limited impact on students with moderate truancy, and no impact on mild truancy. The intervention did not result in improved school attachment or grade point averages, nor did it significantly reduce discipline offenses. Furthermore, the aftercare intervention, consisting of regular meetings with an authority figure (e.g., a juvenile officer), was only effective at maintaining truancy court attendance gains for students with severe truancy at baseline, although it was associated with a substantial decrease in discipline offenses for all groups. These results suggest that truancy courts similar to the one described here may have an impact on truancy for severely truant students, but may have a limited effect on students with mild or moderate truancy. © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

How effective is parental prosecution as a method of improving school attendance among primary‐aged children?

Just under half a million children and young people in state schools in England miss school every day. Indeed, improving school attendance has remained a key aim for successive governments. Various strategies have been adopted at both national and local levels in an attempt to tackle the persistent issue of school attendance with varying degrees of success. This study explores the effectiveness of one of those strategies – that of parental prosecutions – as a means of improving children and young people's school attendance. It reports on the effectiveness of parental prosecutions while highlighting some of the emerging patterns among a cohort of those prosecuted within one local authority during one academic year.     

Mind the Gap: How Students Differentially Perceive Their School's Attendance Policies in Germany

Truant student behavior can be due to various reasons. Some of these reasons are located in schools. So far, little is known about how student perception of school rules is related to truancy. This study aims to identify types of school attendance policies and how these policies are associated with individual truancy. Self-reports from the German student sample of PISA 2012 (N = 5,001) were analyzed to evaluate truancy and student perception of school attendance policies. A linear regression model was specified to predict truancy. Two styles of school attendance policies as perceived by students could be distinguished: active and passive. Students who perceived their school's attendance policy to be active were truant less often than students who thought their school's attendance policy was passive.     

Present and Accounted for: Improving Student Attendance Through Family and Community Involvement

Abstract

Reducing student absenteeism and truancy is a goal of many schools across the country. Surprisingly little research focuses on what schools can do to increase and sustain students' daily attendance, and even fewer studies explore how family-school-community partnerships may contribute to this goal. In this longitudinal study, data were collected on schools' rates of daily student attendance and chronic absenteeism and on specific partnership practices that were implemented to help increase or sustain student attendance. Results indicate that several family-school-community partnership practices predict an increase in daily attendance, a decrease in chronic absenteeism, or both. The data suggest that schools may be able to increase student attendance in elementary school by implementing specific family and community involvement activities.     

Tackling Truancy: an examination of persistent non‐attendance amongst disaffected school pupils and positive support strategies

The unauthorised non‐attendance of pupils constitutes an increasing area of concern for educationalists and one which has recently received much media attention. This paper seeks to locate the practice of truancy within an educational context, considers a framework for the support of pupils at risk and offers an ‘in‐school’ approach designed to ameliorate the effects of persistent non‐attendance     

Rhetoric and reality: are integrated schools in Northern Ireland really making a difference?

This article explores perspectives on the current contribution of integrated schools to society in Northern Ireland and asks whether there is a mismatch between what some expect from the schools and what they may be able to provide. It suggests that integrated education may for some be a magic panacea, whilst those leading the sector see the benefits of integrated education as emerging over a much longer and more realistic timeframe. Based on a series of interviews with principals and with other leaders, this article explores how integrated schools balance the practice and evaluation of integration with other conflicting priorities. It questions the extent to which the schools show variation and argues that greater coherence within the integrated sector might be helpful in the current climate.     

A strategic approach to tackling school absenteeism and truancy: the PSCC scheme

This paper focuses upon a long-term strategic approach to tackling school absenteeism and truancy within secondary schools. It utilises a tiered colour-coded concept to monitor the progress of pupils within the groups and subsequently take the appropriate action. The PSCC scheme combines attainment and attendance data collected from pupils' primary schools with monitoring and enhancement strategies within the secondary school. The scheme enables schools to tackle their long-term absentees and erratic attenders as well as those who have learning and/or special needs. Over a five-year period, properly implemented, the scheme has the potential to help to transform the prevailing culture within low attendance schools. The PSCC model utilises school change strategies in a dynamic manner in order to improve the attendance, behaviour and learning support needs of pupils which, in turn, can help to raise standards and attainment levels. It can also help to improve parents' attitudes towards their children's school. Finally, it provides a managerial focal point for staff to combat pupils' absence utilising a whole school approach.     

School Absenteeism and the Implementation of Truancy-Related Penalty Notices

This paper derives from the author's recent research into disadvantaged children's access to compulsory education in England. Examining the national attendance strategies and practice, the author interrogates the current trend towards a more punitive approach to addressing the problem of school absenteeism while debating the issue of irresponsible parents in terms of parental responsibility. Using the data collected from 150 Local Education Authorities and a survey among Education Welfare managers, the research study reported in this paper measures the association between authorities' readiness to issue penalty notices and the change made in pupils' absence rates between 2004 and 2006. Presenting the findings of the research study, the author argues that truancy is a complex social and historical issue and that poor parenting is itself a symptom of several underlying social problems and the circle of disadvantage. Therefore, the findings of the study call for more efforts and measures to address the underlying social problems and to break the circle of disadvantage of the families that most truanting children come from.     

Analyses of Racism and Sexism in Education and Strategies for Change

Despite the fact that the areas of gender and ‘race’ in education share a common concern over inequality, to date they have on the whole remained separate both at a theoretical level and in published accounts of strategic interventions. This paper explores the predominant theoretical approaches within the two fields and strategies for change, mainly in terms of at whom they are directed. It is argued that in schools, teachers are employing joint strategies and that the way forward for bridging the gap between theory and practice and for developing future practice, is for academics to acknowledge this.     

Cognitive Style and School Refusal

The degree to which truancy may contribute to delinquency, social disorder and educational failure has led to continued political and public interest in the problem of school non‐attendance or refusal. There is, however, a notable lack of empirical research into the phenomenon of truancy and school refusal. This paper investigated the learning style of 17 students aged 15‐17 years identified as school refusers and compared their style distribution to that of 850 students in regular attendance in mainstream secondary schools. The Cognitive Styles Analysis was administered individually to students in the Refusal Group at their Centre during the period of one term. The results indicated that, compared to the comparison group, the learning style of the school refusers was skewed to the Wholist end of the Wholist‐Analytic style dimension. An implication of this research is that a particular learning style was associated with school refusal and research is merited particularly to (a) develop further research into the learning characteristics of students who refuse school and (b) inform a developing school response to refusal.     

Research-supported practices for improving attendance in high schools: a review of the literature

High rates of absenteeism are often an early warning sign for negative long-term outcomes. Typical high school attendance policies, especially those that are punitive in nature, can make attendance problems worse. Fortunately, evidence suggests that even small improvements in student attendance can lead to meaningful outcomes. To support this recovery, high schools must have access to the most effective and efficient attendance interventions. The purpose of this systematic literature review is to summarize the current empirical research related to improving attendance in high schools. Results indicate that the 3 most common elements of high school attendance interventions with desired outcomes were skills training, family support, and incentive-based strategies. We discuss implications for future research and suggest that developing a continuum of research-supported practices within a multi-tiered system of support framework may be an effective way for schools to proactively and efficiently improve student attendance at the high school level.     

Centring and marginalizing: the “soft middle” and Japanese minority education

Examining the gap between national level minority education policies and local implementation in Japan, this paper considers this gap as a “soft middle” whereby local communities and schools have considerable leeway in how they implement policies. In particular, this paper focuses on Japan's largest minority group, the burakumin and their educational experiences. It traces the origins of educational policies targeting burakumin and how these policies were designed with this soft middle in mind. Following this, the paper considers two different localized approaches, both under policies directed at the burakumin and after the termination of such policies. It argues that schools can selectively implement policies while still fitting within the parameters of the law. Finally, it demonstrates that considering the soft middle provides for a richer, more nuanced understanding of educational systems, beyond monolithic assumptions of national systems.     

School Effectiveness and School Attendance

ABSTRACT

Given that the British Government is proposing to require all schools to provide the Secretary of State with details of, amongst other things, their respective truancy rates, this article sets out to demonstrate that attendance figures, as well as examination results, should be modified before publication. It reports on a study involving 5,429 pupils in their final year of primary education attending 138 junior/primary schools in a single authority in Wales and utilises child, home and school data.     

农村教师专业发展:教育学改革的实践取向

基于地方高校的教师教育目标与教育学课程的特性,针对教育学理论脱离农村基础教育教师实际的突出问题,以促进农村教师专业发展为实践取向,进行教育学教材内容和教学方法改革,从中探索教育学理论与农村教师专业发展实际紧密结合的新路子,构建教育学教学结合农村教师专业发展实际开展职前培养与在职培训一体化的新模式。同时,提出教育学改革的这一实践取向,要适应拓展农村教师培养方向和提升培养层次的新需求。