Texting parents about the number of days of school their child has missed can lead to small improvements in attendance, a study has found.
Parents find texts highlighting the number of days missed clearer and more meaningful than texts highlighting their child’s attendance in percentage terms, researchers found.
Over the course of the trial, which involved more than 100 secondary schools in England, around 36,000 parents received texts saying, for example: “Tom missed five days of school last term”, rather than their usual school communications about absence, received by a control group of around 36,000 parents.
Receiving the former texts highlighting days missed was associated with 15 extra days of attendance per 100 pupils across five half terms, or 0.21 fewer missed days of school per pupil.
Emily Yeomans, co-chief executive of the Education Endowment Foundation (EEF), which funded an analysis of the trial along with the Youth Endowment Fund, said: “There is no doubt that the attendance crisis is one of the biggest issues currently facing schools across England.
“Good attendance is critical to ensure young people keep up with the curriculum and ultimately are able to reach their full potential.”
The trial, which was developed by the Behavioural Insights Team and evaluated by Verian, had a larger impact on pupils eligible for free school meals, girls, and pupils in year 8.
Of 781 parents who were surveyed at the end of the trial who received the days missed messages, 51% reported taking action after getting them by discussing attendance with their child or monitoring it more closely.
The trial also found parents valued the specific personalised information, and those interviewed as part of the trial generally already recognised the importance of attendance.
The evaluation pointed out that while the impact on attendance was small, costs were low at just over £1 per pupil receiving the texts, which reduces to 29p once the programme is set up.
“Many schools will already have mechanisms in place to communicate with parents about their child’s absence,” Ms Yeomans added.
“These findings could signal some simple tweaks that could be made to help strengthen communications between school and home and make a real difference to young people’s engagement and outcomes.”
NAHT school leaders’ union general secretary Paul Whiteman welcomed the promising findings but said schools are not usually equipped to address all the root causes of school absence.
“Greater investment is also needed in mental health services and social care which have been underfunded over the last decade, with vital roles like education welfare officers who worked directly with families to improve attendance being cut,” he said.
School absence levels saw a big increase after the pandemic.
There has been some progress – the overall absence rate for the school year 2024/25 was 6.9%, down slightly from 7.1% in 2023/24 and 7.4% in 2022/23.
However, severe absence rates – when a pupil missed half or more of their sessions – have seen a small increase from 2% in 2022/23 to 2.3% in 2023/24. Severe absence rates also increased from the autumn term of 2023/24 to the autumn term of 2024/25 – the latest available data.
Education secretary Bridget Phillipson said in August that tackling absences was a “top priority” for the Department for Education (DfE).
The DfE has announced attendance and behaviour hubs will support around 600,000 pupils in 800 schools.
