Is a HALO the key to improving attendance?
Since the pandemic, absence rates have soared - and they’re getting worse. Rates of persistent absence - pupils who miss school once a fortnight - increased from 19.4 per cent in autumn 2023 to 21.5 per cent in spring 2024.
What’s more, research has shown that pupil attendance is linked with educational outcomes, with those from lower-income households seeing a larger negative impact per school day missed.
In response, schools and trusts are investigating new strategies to improve attendance rates, especially for more disadvantaged pupils.
One such initiative is taking place at the Harris Federation, a multi-academy trust of 55 schools in and around London, which has created a new role specifically to address absence: the home-academy liaison officer (HALO).
While Harris academies already employ attendance officers and educational welfare officers (EWOs), secondary director Rebecca Hickey says it decided to introduce the new position because “we needed someone who could take on a caseload of 6-10 students and work long-term on them being fully reintegrated into academy life”.
As such, while attendance officers are typically office-based, dealing “with everyday issues and first-day calls”, and the EWO operates in a social worker capacity linking the school with the local authority, the HALO sits between them, focusing on issues with persistently absent pupils and building relationships with their families to solve these problems.
There are currently five HALOs employed by Harris academies, paid at point 12 on the support staff scale, with Hickey explaining that finances for these roles have either come from the individual schools’ budgets, or the trust’s contingency fund to which academies can apply.
One early adopter of a HALO was Harris Science Academy East London, where Danielle Moring was employed in the summer. She now works closely with its attendance officer to follow up on long-term issues by trying to uncover what lies behind regular absenteeism.
For example, she says visiting one family revealed the student was often up until 2am or later on electronic devices, so their parents needed greater “confidence to put in place some firmer boundaries to support sleep hygiene”.
Moring says these conversations can be difficult because some parents have “a wall up” when it comes to attendance. “But when you get them in and show them the data [on how much school their child has missed], it impacts them.”
She adds that because her children attend the school, too, it helps parents trust her. “I can relate,” she says.
Another student often missed school because if he was running late in the morning, it would exacerbate his anxiety so he wouldn’t come in at all, Moring says.
In this case, she took a gradual approach, agreeing with the student’s mother that for the first term, they would focus on him coming in every day, even if he was a bit late in the morning. Then the next term, “We’ll need to make sure he’s coming in on time”.
Hickey explains that, traditionally, “schools don’t have the capacity” to put together these “bespoke programmes” needed to help tackle student attendance like this - but the HALOs have the remit to do this.
This extends to ensuring any improvements in attendance are maintained. To do this, Moring says she keeps in regular contact with parents, including calling or texting at 7.30am to ask how their morning is going, if the student will be in school and how she can help if needed.
Dan Macpherson, principal of Harris Science Academy East London, says this personal approach is vital, citing ImpactEd research that has found children who feel like they belong in school are less likely to be absent.
“The HALO is a person who knows your family and knows your circumstances, who gives up a bit of their time to call you and say: ‘We miss you. We noticed that you’re not here today. What can we do to get you in?’”, he says.
Another example of a HALO working proactively to help families is at Harris Academy Bermondsey, an all-girls school in South London, where HALO Rhianna Charles started in September.
She explains that an early case she took on concerned a student who was regularly absent because of illness but the reason was never understood. When Charles visited the family’s home, though, she saw the property had a mould problem.
“So I wrote a letter to the housing association,” she says, which led to the family being moved to more appropriate housing. The student now attends school more regularly.
As she worked in the past as an EWO for a local authority, she was able to best understand how to support the family in this instance.
She says this experience also means she does a lot of work with families explaining the legalities around school attendance, including fines, court appearances and involving social services, so parents understand “what we want to avoid” so they don’t end up in this situation.
Gizlé Landman, principal of Harris Academy Bermondsey, says having Charles in the HALO role explaining this information in person means there is now a much stronger “bridge between home and school”.
“She offers a sense of mentoring and care, alongside the understanding that attendance is really important,” she adds.
As well as engaging one-to-one with families, Charles also focuses on broader attendance issues. For example, she says that at the all-girls school, one of the “biggest reasons we have for absence is periods” and concerns around menstruation.
Because of her role, Charles had the capacity to organise a session with the school nurse about periods and specifically the emotional toll they can have, so students felt more confident about how to deal with them - and, crucially, did not use this as a reason to miss school.
While a large part of what HALOs are doing involves fixing issues, they are not expected to solve every problem they uncover. Instead, a core part of their role is to inform colleagues such as safeguarding or special educational needs and disabilities staff about issues they spot on home visits, which these specialists can then investigate.
For example, in one school a HALO became aware of a family that was being rehoused an hour and a half away during an exam period, and so was able to raise this internally to ensure support was provided for the student.
The HALO is well-placed to spot these issues, “because they are on the frontline”, Hickey adds.
For trusts already employing attendance officers, working with EWOs and no doubt engaging with families in other ways, the idea of another role and the cost it incurs may feel unnecessary.
But the academies with HALOs say the role is needed as a direct response to the rise in poverty and a decline in support from local councils, which means, Macpherson says, families who “10 years ago would have met a threshold [for support]” now receive nothing.
“If it wasn’t for Danielle’s work, they might go under the radar,” he adds.
Hickey makes a similar point: “The level of child poverty…it’s remarkably depressing. So we as schools have a duty of care to these young people that goes beyond the school gates.”
After a term in their roles, those working as HALOs believe they can already see a difference: “They [families] are beginning to trust the school again, which is nice because you want them on board,” says Moring.
Charles agrees, saying students often pop into her office to thank her for her support.
The data backs this up, too: at Harris Science Academy East London, attendance is now at 94 per cent, up from 89 per cent last year.
Meanwhile in Bermondsey, since Charles has been in the role, attendance has risen to 95 per cent - “which we haven’t seen since before the pandemic,” Landman adds.
Given these successes, Hickey says “a number of other academies” within Harris are now looking to employ HALOs, too.
With absence a concern across the sector, perhaps it won’t be long until a HALO is a role found in other schools across the country.
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