Attendance matters.

Being in school gives children and young people access to education, friendships, routine and support. Schools work incredibly hard to improve attendance and help pupils engage with their education.

But when we talk about school attendance and SEND, should 100% attendance always be the achievement we celebrate most?

Certificates, prizes, assemblies and “attendance heroes” are commonly used to recognise pupils with excellent attendance. For some children, achieving 100% attendance is a fantastic accomplishment and absolutely something to be proud of.

But what about the child who has managed to attend school twice this week after not managing to attend at all the week before?

Where is their reward?

School attendance can look very different for children with SEND

For children and young people experiencing SEND, school anxiety, medical needs or other barriers to education, getting into school isn’t always straightforward.

Sometimes progress looks like getting dressed in school uniform.  Sometimes it’s leaving the house.

It might be walking through the school gates but not yet managing to enter the classroom.

For another child, staying for one lesson when they previously managed ten minutes could represent weeks of work, trust and determination.

On an attendance spreadsheet, two mornings out of five might not look like success.

For that individual child, it could be their best week in months.

Surely that deserves to be recognised too.

Are we rewarding attendance percentages or progress?

There is nothing wrong with recognising excellent school attendance. But perhaps we need to think more carefully about what we define as excellent attendance and progress.

Imagine one pupil moves from 95% attendance to 100%.

Another moves from 0% to 20%.

Who has made the greatest progress?

The answer isn’t necessarily the child with the highest number.

When SEND and attendance difficulties are involved, percentages don’t always tell us the whole story.

Starting points matter. Barriers matter. Individual progress matters.

The impact of 100% attendance rewards

For children already struggling to attend school, constantly seeing 100% attendance presented as the ultimate measure of success could have unintended consequences. They may already feel different from their peers. They may desperately want to attend more regularly but simply aren’t able to manage it yet. If recognition is reserved solely for children reaching a particular percentage, what message does that send to the child who is making significant progress but remains nowhere near 100%?

Celebrating individual progress alongside overall attendance can communicate something much more powerful:

We noticed how hard that was for you.

We noticed that you tried.

We noticed your progress.

What if a child doesn’t want to be an “attendance hero”?

There’s another important consideration when recognising improved school attendance:

Does the child actually want the recognition?

Not every pupil wants to be called onto a stage during assembly. Not every pupil wants applause. And not every pupil wants their attendance discussed publicly.

For some children with SEND or school anxiety, being singled out in front of their peers could turn something intended as a reward into an uncomfortable experience.

Individualised support shouldn’t stop once a child has achieved something.

The way we recognise that achievement should be individualised too.

One child might love receiving a certificate in assembly. Another might prefer a quiet word from a trusted teacher.

Someone else might appreciate a positive message being sent home.

And another child might simply want an adult they trust to say:

“I know that was difficult. You did really well today.”

Understanding emotionally based barriers to school attendance

School attendance difficulties aren’t always about a child simply choosing not to attend.

For some children and young people, there can be significant emotional, SEND-related, medical or environmental barriers preventing them from accessing education in the same way as their peers.

That’s why understanding the reason behind absence is so important.

An attendance percentage tells us how often a child has attended. It doesn’t necessarily tell us why they haven’t.

And it certainly doesn’t tell us how much effort it took them to attend on the days they did.

Looking beyond the attendance figure allows schools, families and professionals to recognise progress that might otherwise go unnoticed.

Celebrating progress doesn’t mean lowering expectations

Recognising individual progress isn’t about saying attendance doesn’t matter.

And it isn’t about lowering aspirations for children with SEND.

It’s about recognising that the route back into education can look different for every child.

A pupil with 100% attendance can be proud of that achievement.

So can the pupil with 80%.

Or 50%.

Or the child who attended twice this week when last week they couldn’t attend at all.

Success needs context.

Small steps can lead to much bigger ones

At Ed Network, we provide specialist 1:1 SEND tuition for children and young people who are struggling to access mainstream education, including students with SEND, school anxiety, medical needs and other barriers to learning.

We regularly see how important seemingly small steps can be. Progress might begin with engaging with a tutor for ten minutes.

Then completing a full session. Then completing another one. Then establishing a routine.

Then beginning to trust education again.

For some young people, those steps can eventually help them move towards greater engagement with education and, where appropriate, a return to school.

That’s why progress shouldn’t always be measured against somebody else’s 100%.

Sometimes it needs to be measured against where that particular child started.

So perhaps, alongside asking:

“Who achieved 100% attendance this week?”

we should also be asking:

“Who made progress this week?”

Because sometimes the child sitting at 20% has climbed the biggest mountain to get there.

1:1 tuition for children struggling to access school

Ed Network provides individualised 1:1 tuition for children and young people unable to access mainstream education.

Our tutors work with each student at their own pace, helping them rebuild confidence, establish positive routines and work towards their individual educational goals.

Schools and local authorities can also read our 1:1 tuition FAQs to find out how we match tutors to students, where tuition takes place, how attendance and progress are monitored, and how quickly tuition can be put in place.

Safeguarding is central to our work with young people. You can also read about Keeping Children Safe in Education 2026 and what it means for tutors.

Find out more about Ed Network’s SEND and 1:1 tuition provision.