An academy trust has rolled out “FOMO Fridays” to boost attendance – running incentives including a “golden ticket” scheme with prizes such as laptops at the end of the week.
Friday attendance at the nine-school Two Counties Trust in Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire has since gone up 1.5 percentage points.
The scheme started as “feel-good Fridays” at Friesland School, where leaders noticed absence was higher on Fridays, as is the case nationally.
“Whatever we did in terms of punitive measures…it just wasn’t impacting [attendance],” said Craig Patterson, the school’s head.
Attendance boost biggest on Fridays
Instead, the school decided to pack Fridays with fun, incentive-led schemes that allowed pupils to win prizes such as a laptop or day out.
Attendance has risen from 89.9 per cent last February to 90.7 per cent this February. The increase has been biggest on Fridays.
The idea, said Patterson, was to make Fridays “the day children want to be in school”.
Under Friesland’s “golden ticket” scheme, staff give out 10 tickets to pupils throughout the week, “for upholding our values, for being polite, for holding doors, for saying good morning”.
The system runs at points of the year when attendance is lowest, such as November and the second half of January.
On Friday lunchtime, Patterson mans a station in the school hall where pupils deposit their golden tickets, selecting which of three prizes they would like to win.
This month, the prizes are a JD Sports voucher, a laptop or a donation to a charity.
Pupils can request music, and Patterson said many relished the opportunity to chat.
Every class then watches a live-stream as the winners are drawn.
‘Proud stickers’
Friesland also runs “proud stations” and “scholar of the week” schemes that reward academic achievement.
Teachers are asked to hand out five “proud stickers”, for good work.
On Friday breaktime, pupils can exchange these for a prize in the school hall.
“We’ve got 1,200 students, so around 300 a week come and queue,” said Patterson. “We’ve got music playing – a really nice atmosphere.
“They show [us] their work and they explain why they’re proud. We sign them a little certificate that they take home, and then they get a small prize – a pen, or a chocolate bar, or Friesland-branded water bottle.”
Every week, teachers also nominate a “scholar of the week” who has “done something of note, tried really hard, or produced an excellent piece of work”.
Patterson announces the nominees and winners each Friday morning. Pupils cheer and are “really engaged and invested” in the process.
Winners then leave their tutor group and go to the hall, where they walk along a red carpet lined with clapping staff to receive a certificate.
What impact is it having?
According to the latest DfE figures, attendance at state secondary schools averaged 91.2 per cent during the week commencing February 3 this year, meaning attendance at Friesland is still below average.
“This is not a panacea,” said Patterson. “We’ve still got so much work to do, but it is making an improvement.”
Similar initiatives have been rolled out at the trust’s other eight secondaries, under “fear of missing out (FOMO) Fridays”.
Trust-wide, attendance has increased in the past year by 1 per cent on Mondays to Thursdays, and 1.5 per cent on Fridays. Among pupils from disadvantaged backgrounds, Friday attendance has increased by 1.8 per cent.
Wesley Davies, the trust’s chief executive, agrees attendance was far from “a fixed problem”, but FOMO Fridays were “a firm stepping stone”.
What is the effect on teachers?
Patterson said he was “mindful” of the schemes “just giving teachers more to do”.
But the reward schemes are not onerous, and give staff the chance to “do something joyful”.
“The way I sold it to teachers was, why did we become teachers? Did we become teachers to give out corrections or to complain about students who aren’t in [the right] shoes? We want to inspire people.”
It also reduces work long-term “because if we’re not doing these things, getting children to school, teachers are going to end up with more workload, catching children up, and doing absence phone calls”.
A separate scheme is aimed at boosting staff attendance.
Towards the end of each half-term, pupils are encouraged to fill out appreciation notes for staff. In the final week, when staff attendance often drops, those in school are given a “golden envelope” containing notes of thanks.
Catching children up is the child’s responsibility. It’s dereliction of duty by the SLT and Trust to not impress on the students the need for them to be proactive in catching up. It is also an administrative task to make attendance phone calls home. This school is trying it on with their staff.