Fighting for their future

Education Correspondent Niall Murray spent a day with an Educational Welfare Officer and found there is more to poor school attendance than children playing truant.

ON a cold spring morning, Kay Hodgins visits a number of schools in a southside suburb of Cork.

Her first call of the day is to the principal of a 220-pupil primary school who worked with Kay for many years before she became an Educational Welfare Officer (EWO).

At least once a fortnight, they discuss children who have missed 20 days since the start of the year, after which the school must formally inform the local EWO.

As a school attendance officer for six years before the establishment of the National Educational Welfare Board (NEWB) last year, Kay knows the signs of potential difficulties. She is familiar with the schools on this morning’s itinerary and is even aware of poor attendance trends in certain families in the area.

Just as important as identifying those with at least 20 absences, the school head also points out which pupils are approaching that mark.

“There’s often a pattern of a child missing lot of Mondays or Fridays but parents are sometimes surprised how quickly days can mount up,” the primary principal says.

“Some parents might say it’s only 20 days out of 184 in the year, which might seem very low. But if you tell them that’s a month’s work their child has missed, it hits home,” she says.

Some parents believe that junior and senior infants only play in class but studies show these are the most important years, when children learn how to learn.

Kay says around 90% of those who are psychologically assessed for extra teaching resources missed the crucial basics in infant classes.

While it is the job of the school to flag absences before they get out of hand, Kay’s role is to visit the family and address the causes of children missing school.

“The reasons can range from a child refusing to go to school, a crisis at home, or kids being kept home to mind other children or a sick relative. Or for some parents who’re on their own, the physical effort of getting kids up and out to school can be hard,” she says.

“There are often a lot of social problems linked with poor attendance but this is a welfare service, we have to look at it in the context of the child’s entitlement to a proper education.”

As Kay highlights, academically weak children can survive in school because they are in class every day and parents look for the work they missed if they are out of school through illness.

In a nearby boys’ community college, the principal presents Kay with a concise chart of those at or near the 20-day mark.

On this particular morning, she recognises a name on the list as that of a student she had dealings with when he was in primary school.

Another name on the list is that of a 16-year-old who wants to leave school and go into a trade, but Kay and the principal are hoping he will stay in school until June to do his Junior Certificate.

While she and the principal agree the student is not suited to formal education, their interest is in his long-term future and the problems he might encounter later in life without any formal qualification.

The Education (Welfare) Act 2000 raised the minimum school leaving age to 16, meaning this particular student is legally entitled to quit before doing the State exam. However, even if he leaves full-time education, he must put his name on a NEWB register of early school leavers and the board is obliged to help him avail of appropriate educational and training opportunities.

One of the difficulties for schools in deterring students from dropping out is that there is very little to interest them, according to this principal.

“Some of them have 10 or more subjects for Junior Certificate, it’s approaching curriculum overload. It’s all very well for the Government to introduce new subjects, but schools might have to drop periods of core subjects like English to fit them in the timetables,” he says.

To this end, many schools put an emphasis on sporting and other extra-curricular activities to make school fun, rather than a burden.

But for a large number of students, there are more serious educational problems which can often go unidentified.

Kay has included a call to a family which she has had dealings with for a number of years on her schedule this morning.

Marie and Tom, not their real names, are in their 40s and live in a part of Cork city with relatively high unemployment. They have six children, four aged between 15 and 21, and two others aged four and six.

The four older children all had school attendance problems and their parents came to Kay’s attention during this period. The eldest girl left school at 15 but Marie learned from the experience how to handle the younger kids.

“Our next eldest, John, had trouble going to school because he had dyslexia. We got him into a special school which was the best thing we could have done,” she said.

John is now 18 and, a year after leaving school, has a recognised qualification and a job, something his parents would never have thought possible before Kay began helping them.

Marie believes there should be better supports for parents to help them encourage children to achieve their potential in schools.

“There are children who just can’t cope. Even in primary school they would need to have a system to prevent other children with the same problems some of ours had from slipping through unnoticed,” she says.

Tom is grateful for the work that Kay has done and points out that the EWO is not the ‘big bad wolf’ some people might picture when they think of school attendance officers.

Far from it, Kay and her colleagues around the country are working hard to help children reach their full potential.