Attendance in school remains a major issue. Official figures reveal that, while sessions missed before the pandemic were around 4.7 per cent of school, this has risen to as high as seven per cent.

Although there is an improvement for the academic year of 2024-25, absence rates are still equivalent to roughly half a million pupils being absent every day.

At Endike Academy, a primary school that is part of the David Ross Education Trust, we serve a community within one of the most deprived areas of Hull, and see this reality daily.

Tackling the issue head-on

Fragmented attendance patterns for many pupils, particularly in Years 5 and 6, usually equate to one or two days missed a week, rather than long-term absence.

This causes issues ranging from disrupted learning and difficulty settling into routines to pupils not feeling they belong in school.

From August 2025, in an attempt to reverse this, rather than the usual enforcement sanctions for children or parents, we came up with a new approach, based on our trust-wide enrichment programmes.

The programme was called the “Count me in Crew”, and focused on 17 pupils with notable absence rates who we felt would benefit from a fresh approach to attendance.

Selling the ‘Count me in Crew’

We contacted parents about the initiative, explaining that we felt their child would enjoy it and that it would help them to attend school regularly. We spoke about how exciting the project would be, and emphasised that it was optional. All parents were happy for their child to take part.

We explained to the children that we had noticed they often missed school, and wanted to re-engage them by inviting them to join a special club called the “Count me in Crew”.

We spoke enthusiastically about the different activities they could participate in, which excited them, but we also made it clear that they could only join in if they had met their attendance targets the previous week.

The idea was to use the expertise of our music, sport and outdoor learning teams from across the trust to support with the initiative.

They would take part in a 10-week programme that would focus on each area for three weeks, before a final week celebrating their achievements - if they had been present at all the previous sessions.

How it worked

During the first three-week block, children attended tailored outdoor sessions on Wednesdays, learning how to build dens, undertaking team challenges and exploring the nature around them.

The second block concentrated on sport, team skills and cooperative play.

In the final three weeks, children developed musical skills through performance and ensemble work, performing everything they had learnt for their parents. In the 11th week, we had a celebration event around a campfire to reflect on the project.

Parents were also invited to take part by, for example, attending the music sessions, and children gave a final performance in front of their parents and carers. The aim was to strengthen the link between home and school.

To be able to take part in these sessions, though, pupils had to attend daily throughout the week. We used a daily attendance stamp chart, with a morning check-in, showing visual goals that children could use to maintain their commitment.

These targets were also tailored to each child, so they felt achievable and provided a sense of improvement as the course progressed.

Issuing special “crew lanyards” created a strong group identity and was a game-changer: the children loved wearing them; it made them feel important. Since various other pupil roles at school require lanyards, it didn’t make them look or feel different.

A real impact on attendance

We were delighted with the results of the “Count me in Crew”: of the 16 children that we could compare data on from the Summer and Autumn term 2025 after taking part in the programme, 13 showed improved attendance (the 17th child had been home-schooled, so had no official attendance records).

Of the three showing reduced attendance, one had a bout of genuine illness. Only one pupil had a continued drop in attendance.

Most importantly, though, we found that helping children to engage reconnected them to school, and the pastoral confidence they developed led to an improvement in their academic engagement.

We are now hoping to integrate the “Count me in Crew” as part of a trust-wide attendance strategy, with plans to adapt it for Key Stage 1 and other targeted cohorts.

Kate Buyukyilmaz is principal at Endike Academy, part of David Ross Education Trust