Monitoring Attendance with Love

As I have settled in to my role as a Pastoral Year Tutor, I have become more and more focused on how attendance is directly linked to attainment. In my experience, there is almost always a reason why a student is not attending classes. It could be personal circumstances such as problems at home, mental health issues, economic reasons, in these days problems with internet connection, caring responsibilities, hidden disabilities that manifest themselves through the student struggling to understand tasks or juggle the workload… I could go on. Because of this, I have started to keep a close eye on registers, and to email students direct if they miss classes. I even often invite them straight away to a one-to-one tutorial with me to check in.

The more I get to know students the better in tune I become to their behaviour and have often had a feeling that something’s not right, just by a very small change in their behaviour. I always feel quite humbled if a student after some gentle nudging tells me that the reason for their absence is that they for example have broken up with a long term boyfriend, and feels safe to shed a few tears in front of me. I usually respond with a few wise words that only years of experience of life and love gives you to show that I understand and it’s only natural for them to feel affected by these recent events. Before the end of the meeting, we go through where they’re at and what they need to do to catch up. This way, the student has shared their reason for being absent and understood that it’s ok, but also been supported with organising their work and time moving forward.

During this spring term alone, I have been able to pick up on many different issues and have offered support and guidance. I have referred students to counselling, probably saved a few from failing their submission, taken time to explain the different units and what is expected etc. In fact, I recently found out that one student’s reason for absence is that she is in China and hadn’t understood that the clocks had changed in October! This revealed itself after she described in our meeting how she often turned up to class but no one was there. She thought there was something wrong with her timetable. But when she emailed me a couple of days later at 2pm for a 3pm class to say that no one was there again, the penny dropped and I worked out what must have been happening. It was a reminder that something can be so obvious to one person, but not at all to another.

I have mediated between other tutors or connected with disability services and students to ensure everyone is aware of the situation and students receive full support. This is a very rewarding role and my favourite part of the job by far. By picking up as early as possible on WHY a student is not attending, I can often catch that first piece of domino before it falls and tips all the other pieces over too. I have learned that once a student has got so overwhelmed that they stick their head in the sand and stops responding to emails, it is so much harder to get them back on track. I would never have the time to spend this amount of time on every student, but I don’t need to. I must spend the time where it’s necessary to help level out the attainment gaps.

In discussions on attendance in our PgCert class, one of my peers who is a BA1 Year tutor on a different course shared; “In terms of attendance we always follow up with every student that hasn’t attended a class.. we send a caring and supportive email – students often reply with things such as ‘thank you for your support.. thank you for caring..'”

I agree – students are always grateful that I have reached out. It helps them feel seen and valued and it helps with fostering a sense of belonging as the student feels that their presence has been missed.

My peer made some other valuable comments; “It also suggests that you care about the reasons why they may have not been able to attend and you are able to pick up on issues that you can help to support with – or if not you personally but another support team. It is important to work as team not in isolation when supporting students. I think working closely with teams that have specific expertise in certain areas where students need support is really important.”

I think this is another great point – as mentioned before I take a very similar approach – communicating with other tutors and working together is very important for supporting students. To give one example, if a student is going through a difficult time or has had a traumatic experience, we do not want them to have to keep repeating the story to different tutors. It is much better is they can tell their main tutor who passes on the message (with permission / only as much detail as needed) and that we then work together to build a support network for them.

I intend to keep developing my approach to supporting students in this way and would like to include the topic of love as a key part of my future studies on this course as well as in my working life.