A TRUANCY prevention week was hailed a success last week in Burnley. Education reporter Nafeesa Shan investigates how an East Lancashire school is fighting the problem of absences.

TEXT messages to parents, contracts for pupils who are persistently absent, fixed penalty notices and attendance boards and bulletins are just a handful of strategies one school is using to raise attendance.

Senior attendance officer Sheila Leah and her team have been instrumental in improving the attendance rate from 88 per cent to 95.7 per cent over the last four years at Hameldon Community College, Burnley.

The Coal Clough Lane school has one of the highest attendance rates in the borough alongside Blessed Trinity RC College, Burnley.

But just a few years ago it was flagged up as a persistent absence school by Lancashire County Council and since then it has been working hard to eradicate absences.

And as a result of the measures the persistent absence rate has dropped from 16 per cent to four to five per cent and is over the 95 per cent target set by the student council.

Although official attendance figures show that truancy is dropping in Lancashire year on year for the last three years, Burnley’s rate of 7.52 was still higher compared to the rest of Lancashire and the country.

And in Blackburn with Darwen, unauthorised absence rates have also been dropping from 1.5 per cent in 2007-2008 to 0.74 per cent in 2009-2010.

Sheila said simple encouragement such as small prizes for regular attendance, having each child plot their attendance on graphs so each child knows their absence rate, an end of year trip where only pupils with good attendance or improved attendance are invited have helped transform the school.

Staff are stationed outside the gates to ensure every child goes into school and parents are called as soon as a child is found to be absen,t and home visits take place.

Lateness is also not tolerated with lunchtime detentions in place.

Some of these initiatives are replicated in schools across East lancashire in a bid to reduce absence rates.

Sheila said: “The target of 95 per cent attendance is quite high but the students have set it. It was a case of raising the bar. A few years ago attendance rates were 88 per cent and we really needed to do something drastic.

“We run competitions for merits and small prizes, we have attendance message boards, each pupil plots their attendance on graphs and every child in the school knows what their attendance rate is.

“Children at Hameldon take ownership of their attendance.

“If a child has over four per cent persistence absence they are flagged up.

“We write to parents, carry out home visits, meetings with parents, we have one-to-one meetings with the child and set targets for them to improve. They sign a contract and we have found the students take it very seriously. They see it as a legal document and they sign and agree to it.”