Schools reward pupils with iPads and bikes for turning up to lessons

Schools are giving pupils iPads and bicycles as a reward for turning up to lessons, a report has found.
The National Foundation for Educational Research (NFER) found schoolchildren are receiving incentives including pizza parties, school trips and prize draws as headteachers try to tackle high absence rates.
Earlier this month, it emerged pupils are missing an extra 4.7 million school days every term after the pandemic caused truancy rates to soar.
A record number of pupils are missing more than half of lessons, Department for Education statistics revealed last week.
The report, based on interviews with staff and pupils at nine secondary schools and survey responses from 600 secondary teachers, said schools that combined reward with sanctions had seen 'higher pupil engagement' with attendance policies as children felt motivated to attend.
Incentives in schools for high attendance included prize draws – with rewards such as bikes and iPads – and pizza parties.
In some schools, pupils who did not attend regularly were banned from attending the Year 11 prom or trips.
The report advised headteachers to pursue 'individualised' approaches to improve attendance.
This could include ensuring that attendance and behaviour policies 'prioritise encouragement and support over sanctions,' it added.
The study suggests illness, mental health issues were partly to blame but some parents were choosing to take their children with them on holiday during term-time.
Prioritise 'encouraging'
Matt Walker, NFER senior research manager and co-author of the report, said: 'Attendance is strongly linked to educational outcomes, so it's concerning that absence rates remain high.
'The study responses suggest schools should consider prioritising encouraging and individualised approaches in addition to punitive sanctions.'
Paul Whiteman, general secretary at school leaders' union NAHT, said: 'These findings echo what school leaders tell us about the severe limitations of parental fines in improving pupil attendance.
'Absence most often reflects issues beyond the school gate, like mental health challenges and poverty, and clearly identifying and being able to support families to address these issues is far more effective.'
He added: 'If the link between absence and term-time holidays is to be broken, the only sustainable solution is government action to prevent travel firms unfairly hiking prices during school holidays.'

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• Telegraph

NHS survey overstates mental health crisis in children, say experts

A leading consultant has criticised official data that claims that more than one in five school children has mental health problems as 'nuts' and 'pernicious'. A new report by the Department for Education on the rise in pupils not attending school links it to increased levels of mental illness among young people. It cites NHS data showing that 21 per cent of children aged eight to 16 have a 'probable mental health problem'. The figure has been widely publicised and is part of the justification for the government's policy to put councillors in every secondary school. But experts warn that the calculation is based on 'subjective' questionnaire data and could be exaggerating the prevalence of mental health issues among young people. The Strengths and Difficulties survey used in the NHS data gives children multiple choice questions on their emotional state, concentration levels, conduct and relationships to assess their mental wellbeing. Pupils are asked questions such as: 'Have you recently felt capable of making decisions about things?'; 'Have you recently felt that you are playing a useful part in things?' and 'Do you sometimes feel anxious in certain situations?'. Response options are 'not true', 'somewhat true', or 'certainly true'. Children who score 17 or above out of 40 are recorded as having 'probable mental health problems'. However, Professor Dr Joanna Moncrieff, an academic at University College London and a practising psychiatrist for the NHS, has questioned the method and the labelling of children as mentally ill. 'Anyone scoring above the average in this survey is deemed to have a probable mental health problem – I mean that's nuts,' she told The Telegraph. 'It is a really good illustration of how misleading this whole mental health debate can be. Saying that the reason children are not going to school is because of mental health problems is oversimplifying to the extent that you are not saying anything. By saying it is a mental health problem, you think you've explained it, but you really haven't.' Dennis Hayes, a professor of education at Derby University and co-author of The Dangerous Rise of Therapeutic Education, described the data method as 'shoddy' and 'crude'. 'It is as bad as the little questionnaires in OKAY magazine,' he said. 'I went through some of those questions. One is 'do you sometimes feel anxious in certain situations?' Yes, all the time! So, I don't think this is the way to proceed.' Prof Hayes said children and adults are being taught to see normal anxieties as ' mental health problems '. 'Multiple choice surveys merely confirm a cultural belief that we are all unwell,' he said. 'It's a terrible and destructive thing. It creates introverted children and young people who can't cope.' 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Times

15-06-2025

• Times

Parent says no, stop the screen rot in schools

Bravo to the education committee for finally saying what we all know to be true: for young children, screens are like — and I'm paraphrasing here, but not by much — crack, in terms of rotting their brains and being ludicrously addictive. In its new report, 'Screen time: impacts on education and wellbeing', the committee concluded, 'The overwhelming weight of evidence submitted to us suggests that the harms of screen time and social media use significantly outweigh the benefits for young children.' In other words, it's not social media that's the problem. It's screens themselves. So, boy oh boy, that education committee will be really angry with whoever just made this decision: from September the national statutory tests for five-year-olds, the 'reception baseline assessment', will require at least two touchscreens — one for the teacher and one for the very young child (adult and child, side by side, both on screens, just as God intended.) Who on earth thought it was a good idea to test five-year-olds on tablets? Oh wait, it's written here in small letters, let me get my glasses …It was the Department for Education. Ah. By now, bodies ranging from the World Health Organisation to the NHS have published guidelines about screen time for young children. But these guidelines are arguably too little and definitely too late: a 2020 Ofcom report found that an astonishing 57 per cent of five- to seven-year-olds in Britain have a tablet. As a result of this large-scale outsourcing of parenting to screens, last week a coalition of schools, nurseries and colleges published a letter saying that children were now starting school with speech and emotional difficulties 'that are likely to have been exaggerated by or are even directly attributable to excessive screen time'. And yet the DfE has decided that those same screen-addicted kids should be tested on screens. 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BBC News

12-06-2025

• BBC News

Record 1 in 5 pupils in England getting special education needs support

Nearly one in five pupils in England are receiving support for special educational needs (SEN) in the classroom, according to government comes as separate stats shows a sharp rise in the number of tribunals concerning special educational needs support, as parents challenge the support on offer for their unions say systemic change in special educational needs provision is "urgently needed" for schools and students. The government said it will set out more detailed plans for reforms to special educational needs in the autumn. The number of school pupils in England receiving support for special educational needs rose to more than 1.7 million, according to annual statistics from the Department for Education released on Thursday. That's a rise of 5.6%, or an extra 93,700 pupils compared to last means nearly one in five of pupils in England (19.6%) are getting extra support for special educational needs, the highest proportion since stats were collected in this way. Over 482,000 of those pupils have an education, health and care plan (EHCP) - a legal document issued by local authorities that sets out the support a child needs. Since 2016, the number of children receiving all types of special needs support has risen by 44% and those with an EHCP has more than EHCP increase has been driven by rising rates of autistic spectrum disorder among pupils, speech and language problems, and more pupils with social, emotional and mental health needs, the independent think tank the Institute for Fiscal studies stats show autistic spectrum disorder is the most common need named on education, health and care plans. Although it is unclear what is behind the rise, the IFS has said it could be down to better recognition of autistic spectrum disorder symptoms, particularly in girls. 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She says "having to go through the system and fight every step of the way - it takes a big toll on you.""We're constantly filling in forms and thinking what is best for our child."She says they are "in limbo" as his needs might not be great enough for a specialist school, but he is struggling in mainstream."You're seeing them struggling and you're crying out for help and there's no one who can give it to you."Cath says she's concerned that the government will make changes to - or abolish -EHCPs in their upcoming reforms. Teaching unions have said that rising number of pupils who need extra support is putting more pressure on schools. Paul Whiteman, general secretary of the headteacher's union the NAHT said "despite incredible efforts" the current system is "completely unsustainable". He said "schools face shortages of experts like educational psychologists and speech and language therapists, and a postcode lottery in accessing additional money from cash-strapped local authorities for pupils with the greatest needs - while parents are having to take councils to tribunal to get the places they want for their children due to a lack of capacity".More parents are turning to tribunals to challenge the support on offer for their child. Separate stats out today from the Ministry of Justice show there were 24,000 SEND (Special Educational Needs and Disability) tribunals brought in the year to April, an increase of 36% on the previous year and the highest number on record. The National Audit Office said in a report last year that the SEND system as a whole "wasn't financially sustainable" and wasn't delivering better outcomes for children and young people, despite big increases in high-needs funding over the last 10 years. Local authorities are under huge financial pressure because of rising SEND needs. A deal holding £3bn of SEND deficits off local authorities books is due to run out next year. The government said in the spending review they would be setting out their long-awaited plans to reform the SEND system in England this autumn in a government white paper. They've also set aside £760m over two years to reform SEND from a transformation fund In response to today's figures for SEN pupils and the rise in SEND tribunals Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson said: "Behind each one of these figures is a family desperately fighting for even the most basic support for their child, leaving a staggering number of parents exhausted while young people are denied precious help."It doesn't have to be this way, and this government will deliver the reform that families are crying out for through our Plan for Change – giving an excellent education to every child."We have already taken the first steps to identify and meet children's needs earlier in mainstream schools, including through more early intervention across speech and language, ADHD and autism to prevent needs from escalating and £740m to encourage councils to create more specialist places in mainstream schools."Additional data reporting by Harriet Agerholm