By Marie Birks, Strategic Campaigns Specialist Communications Team, Sheffield City Council
At some point all local authorities will be asked to run a school attendance campaign.
‘Every School Day Matters’, ‘Moments Matter’, ‘Attendance Counts’ – all very valid points, so why are these straplines not hitting home. In a nutshell, Covid. While attendance rates were descending pre Covid, post 2021 they have been plummeting. School and parents are at cross purposes, there are misconceptions on both sides and trust is hanging by a thread. Don’t get me wrong, I know schools are working tirelessly to support pupils in impossible situations, and parents are doing their best, but school attendance, or the lack thereof, is heading for crisis.
As a Strategic Campaign Specialist at Sheffield City Council I develop and deliver priority communications in the city. I was tasked to write a campaign aimed at increasing school attendance leading to better educational attainment, and longer term, more successful outcomes for young people.
As a mum of two, one at primary, one at secondary this has personal resonance, and I was both excited and apprehensive. The request was to follow previous campaign messaging. In Sheffield we strive to develop and deliver communications which achieve set objectives and outcomes and which have measurable impact. Previous campaigns had not delivered against those objectives and outcomes. I knew this would be a challenge with no quick fix.
‘Successful outcomes’
As always having clearly defined objectives and outcomes is crucial. It was interesting to see what successful outcomes currently looked like from a public perception. Here, at the moment, the definition is often translated as gaining good grades and going to university. This is where I know professional communication teams can provide a different lens and why it’s important to have diverse teams with different lived experiences to bring new perspectives. I knew we needed to broaden the discussion about what educational attainment and successful outcomes looked like.
Audience is key
As the best campaigns focus on the needs, attitudes and motivations of the audience I immersed myself in national and local research. This revealed a complex picture, including:
- The reasons that children are not attending school, holidays, sickness, anxiety in the child, anxiety in the parents, neurodiversity, family issues
- Multiple target audiences. Sheffield has a diverse population, a one size fits all campaign would not work.
- Startling data revealing an undeniable link between deprivation and school attendance, not just in the poorest areas but within schools in wealthier areas where Pupil Premium students (those on free school meals) still had the lowest attendance.
- Current activity – schools are taking a variety of approaches, schemes, rewards, incentives, tailored support, essentially doing everything in their power to support families.
- Schools told us (specifically secondary schools) that parents don’t see school as an essential and are disengaged from the education system.
Every door I opened seemed to lead to another situation, and another, and another.
What was, and is, clear, is that parents and schools alike want to be heard but currently feel misunderstood. Parents are largely struggling to articulate what it is they want to say, at least, directly to the school, or have completely disengaged. Without meaning to, parents and schools seems to be crying out, but into the void, not to each other, misaligned and frustrated.
Learning lessons from the past
Reviewing recent school attendance campaigns, I could see that recent comms were repeating the same sort of pre-Covid era messaging, which just isn’t landing right. We needed a fresh approach.
Having spoken to schools, my next step is to speak to the parents. We’re telling them attendance and achievement are linked, but what does success and achievement mean to them? What are they trying to say that cannot be said to the school directly? We will give parents and carers some ownership of this one. We will avoid a campaign they see as empty words, bouncing off parents at best, offending and triggering them at worst. Talking to the parents and carers of the most vulnerable pupils is my first job, and one of the most important.
Six months in, and more so now than ever, my research is clear. Plastering posters around the city, bombarding social media with, on the surface, happy looking children, reminding parents how much fun they can have at school would be repeating ineffective messaging.
Instead, by engaging with parents and schools I am developing a campaign which connects emotionally (and positively) and is much more likely to achieve its objectives. My aim is to engage, inspire and support. To create a cross community responsibility for school attendance. To ultimately build bridges and play our small part in ending this issue.
In the meantime, watch this space.