27 August 2003
Early Roll Call for New School Attendance Advice Group

A unique new support group, the School Implementation Group, met for the first time today (Aug. 27th) to give on-the-ground support and advice to the National Educational Welfare Board (NEWB), the new Agency set up to encourage and support regular school attendance.

The School Implementation Group consists of representatives of key areas of education including school management, principals, teacher unions and parents. This group will also consult regularly with children and young people on activities which are particularly relevant to their school life, for example, developing codes of behaviour at school or developing school attendance strategies. One of the main aims of the new Implementation Group is to ensure that the NEWB can proceed with its important job in a "spirit of co-operation and collaboration with those most involved in education".

"School absenteeism is a shared concern in Irish education. Missing school on a regular basis is often the first step to dropping out of school completely for too many children," explained Eddie Ward. " In order to do our job properly the NEWB needs to work closely with schools, parents and children. We need to know what will work and what will not work in getting the vital message across that all children are better off staying in school. We need to ensure that there is coordination between school and Board staff in the delivery of the new service so that poor attendance is identified early on and followed up. This new Implementation Group will be both a vital consultative group and a practical sounding board.".

The proposed terms of reference for the School Implementation Group are to:

• Identify issues of concern to schools and the NEWB;
• Assist in the development of new Guidelines for schools;
• Advise on the development of relationships between the NEWB and schools;
• Advise on the best systems and procedures for recording, monitoring and reporting pupil attendance;
• Make recommendations on actions to be taken by the Board, as appropriate.

The NEWB is in the final stages of recruiting 36 new staff who will be involved in the delivery of educational welfare services in the new school year. This will bring the total of educational welfare staff to 73. When fully operational, the Board will have over 300 educational welfare staff.

For more information contact: Edel Hackett, Tel: 087-2935207