Professionals - Good Practice & Policies

The Every Schoolday Counts Project is a fresh, innovative initiative that aims to increase attendance in the City of Sunderland’s Primary and Special Schools through new and innovative strategies.

These strategies have been adopted as good practice and have often been held up as an example to other authorities.

Some examples of Good Practice:

• Targeted, half-day support to the 24 schools in the lowest quartile.
  
• Offering a first day response through Primary Support Workers making ‘home visits’ on the first day of an unauthorised absence.
  
• Group work with poor attenders, with the use of tools such as reward books and Spike’s attendance colouring book to motivate children.
  
• An annual public Celebration Event to reward children with 100% attendance and other attendance achievements.
  
• The use of Spike the friendly attendance mascot as a character which children can associate with the Project and attending school.
  
• Active promotion and marketing of the Project’s news and success stories as well as active seeking of sponsorship to fund mini-projects to increase attendance and encourage punctuality.
  
• Involving children and parents in the development of its practice through consultation groups.
  
• Establishing a Holiday Discount Scheme with locally owned travel agent, Hays Travel, to encourage families to take their holidays outside of term time.
  
• Establishing links with the local Rotary Club in Sunderland to enable 12 mini attendance projects to be rolled out within 12 schools, with each school receiving £150 to develop a strategy to encourage attendance.

This will house detailed information about Every Schoolday Counts, its strategies, good practice, the tools and resources the Project uses to promote attendance and more.

If you would like to know more about the Toolbox, or feel you could contribute please contact Every Schoolday Counts on 0191 5535431.