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Behaviour

Tackling Persistent Absence: Developing an Empathetic, Solution Focused Framework

Spend less of each attendance meeting on what went wrong and more on the next small step, with questions that bring the child with you.

  • 47 minutes
  • 1 CPD hour
  • Certificate

Free for 14 days, then £8 a month or £80 a year. Cancel before day 14 and you won't pay anything.

On its own: £51 including VAT · 12 months' access

About this course

Some attendance meetings spend most of the hour on the past: which days were missed, who said what, why the last plan didn't work. The family goes home feeling judged, and nothing changes.

A solution-focused approach starts somewhere else, and you don't need the whole back story to find a way forward. Open with what the child is good at. Ask the miracle question, or "what are your best hopes?" if that's too big, and use scaling from 0 to 10 to find the next step. One pupil scored PE at zero. The step up to a one turned out to be coming to school in PE kit, because getting changed was the real problem.

Empathy runs through the words you use ("I wonder…", "thank you for telling me"), how often you review the plan and where you hold the meeting.

Modules

10 modules
  1. 1Introduction – Empathetic Framework5 min
  2. 2Understand Why Children May Not Be Able to Attend4 min
  3. 3Brené Brown on Empathy3 min
  4. 4Solution Focused Approach6 min
  5. 5Traditional Counselling vs Solution Framework2 min
  6. 6Solution Focused Journey7 min
  7. 7Questions2 min
  8. 8Scaling4 min
  9. 9Change Your Language4 min
  10. 10How to Do More of What is Working10 min

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Good to know

  • A certificate with your CPD hours that anyone can check online.
  • Buy the course and you have 12 months to finish it.
  • Stop when you like and pick up where you left off.
  • Your school is a member? Log in and it’s already there. You won’t pay twice.

Start this course today

Try it free for 14 days. The trial opens every course in the library, including this one.

On its own: £51 including VAT · 12 months' access