Persistent school non-attendance (PSNA) is a widely acknowledged problem. Family coaches work intensively with families where a child or young person (CYP) has persistently poor or no school attendance and there is unemployment or anti-social behaviour. Their work extends across different systems, which gives them a unique, multi-factored…

Low schooling, high non-attendance and school dropout rates are critical phenomena within disadvantaged groups, especially among the Gypsy community. For example, in the UK, 10%-25% of Gypsy children do not attend school regularly and have significantly higher levels of overall absence from school (percentage of half-day sessions missed) than…

We report the implementation and evaluation of a "peer assisted learning" (PAL) scheme designed to reduce the so-called "cooling off" phenomenon in undergraduate mathematics. "Cooling off" occurs when mathematics undergraduates lose motivation and interest in their studies, despite having previously actively chosen to…

Evaluation of successful professional intervention for two case studies of female adolescents' school refusal behaviour is presented. Data gathered from the young person, professionals, and parents in each case are synthesised to propose a multi-level, ecologically situated model of intervention for school refusal behaviour. The proposed model…

Background: Incentives have been proposed as a method to improve attendance in adult literacy classes. In the UK, several areas have piloted the use of incentives to promote attendance at adult literacy classes. To date no rigorous evaluation of this policy has been undertaken. This paper describes (as far as we are aware) the "only"…

Chronic non-attendance has generally focused on the distinction between truancy and school refusal: the former has traditionally been linked to conduct disorder, the latter to separation anxiety disorder. However, research has demonstrated that truancy and school refusal exist in the absence of such disorders and, more significantly, that some…