Objective: Absence rates remain high in UK schools, with negative implications for attainment, life
chances, and inequality. Reasons for non-attendance are complex, but include psychosocial factors.
Few UK-based studies have evaluated psychosocial interventions for school attendance outcomes,
or its moderators. This pre-post ...
Objective: Absence rates remain high in UK schools, with negative implications for attainment, life
chances, and inequality. Reasons for non-attendance are complex, but include psychosocial factors.
Few UK-based studies have evaluated psychosocial interventions for school attendance outcomes,
or its moderators. This pre-post evaluation examined the potential influence of school-based one-to one counselling on school attendance, and possible moderators.
Design & setting: Secondary analysis of routine data, collected by a national mental health provider
in primary and secondary schools.
Participants: 7405 pupils aged 4-19 years, with complete school attendance records at Time1 (pre counselling term) and Time2 (the term when counselling ended).
Intervention: All participants received school-based one-to-one counselling with a trained counsellor
between August 2016 and December 2019.
Outcomes: percentage of school sessions attended (continuous) and persistent absence (binary;
attending ≤90% of sessions) in a term. Potential moderators included socio-demographics, mental
health, and school engagement/enjoyment.
Results: Median Time1 attendance was 96%. 23·6% of participants were persistently absent. The
intervention was not associated with improved percentage attendance (0·028%, 95%CI -0·160-0·216)
but was associated with 18·5% reduced odds of persistent absence (OR=0·815, 95%CI 0·729-0·911).
We identified five moderators of change in attendance (interaction terms p<0.05): age-group
(improvements for 4-9s; worsening for 15-19s), and improvement for some ethnicities, and lower
parent/carer education. Mental health and school engagement/enjoyment co-varied with
attendance in expected directions.
Conclusions: One-to-one counselling may improve school attendance among persistently absent
pupils, particularly at younger ages. Improving mental health and pupil engagement/enjoyment are
potential intervention targets. Our hypotheses require confirmation with controlled designs.