Behaviour
Tackling Persistent Absence: Developing an Empathetic, Solution Focused Framework
Spend less of each attendance meeting on what went wrong and more on the next small step, with questions that bring the child with you.
- 45 minutes
- Recorded webinar
- 1 CPD hour
- Certificate
Members
14 days free, then £70 a year or £7 a month.
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What you'll learn
- Respond with empathy rather than sympathy when a child explains their absence
- Ask the miracle question or best hopes to help a child picture a way forward
- Use scaling from 0 to 10 to break a return into small steps
- Choose language that keeps families on side, such as "I wonder" and "I notice"
- Set reviews at a pace and place that suit the family
About this course
Some attendance meetings spend most of the hour on the past: which days were missed, who said what, why the last plan didn't work. The family goes home feeling judged, and nothing changes.
A solution-focused approach starts somewhere else, and you don't need the whole back story to find a way forward. Open with what the child is good at. Ask the miracle question, or "what are your best hopes?" if that's too big, and use scaling from 0 to 10 to find the next step. One pupil scored PE at zero. The step up to a one turned out to be coming to school in PE kit, because getting changed was the real problem.
Empathy runs through the words you use ("I wonder...", "thank you for telling me"), how often you review the plan and where you hold the meeting.
- For early career teachers, governors and 6 other roles. All phases.
Recording
Open in order
- 4 min
Introduction – Empathetic Framework
- 4 min
Understand Why Children May Not Be Able to Attend
- 4 min
Brené Brown on Empathy
- 6 min
Solution Focused Approach
- 2 min
Traditional Counselling vs Solution Framework
- 7 min
Solution Focused Journey
- 3 min
Questions
- 5 min
Scaling
- 5 min
Change Your Language
- 10 min
How to Do More of What is Working