The REPS EBSA team have contributed to nationally published work and are currently represented on a number of national groups which are focused on approaches to improving school attendance. These include:
Scottish Division of Educational Psychologists (SDEP) & Association of Scottish Principal Educational Psychologists (ASPEP): Non-Attendance Working Group
Renfrewshire EPS is well represented on this national working group which brings together EPs from a variety of local authorities who are looking at this issue.
REPS made a significant contribution to this groups National Action Enquiry Thinkpiece published on the Education Scotland website. You can read this here.
West Partnership: Specialist Network on Attendance
Renfrewshire EPS has representation on the West Partnership’s Specialist Network on Attendance. The network consists of a variety of professionals from neighbouring local authorities within our region who we link and work closely with. Recently, each of the local authorities involved in the regional collaborative have been engaged in a Collaborative Action Research (CAR) project which has been run in partnership with the University of Glasgow and the Robert Owen Centre.
The CAR involves:
- Practitioners collectively research an aspect of their practice or arrangements in their establishment/community to inform changes that bring about improvement.
- Gathering appropriate evidence to understand if and why the changes they introduced have made a difference
The CAR can enhance professional learning, critical reflection and understanding at both practitioner, school and systems levels.
We await the findings of this particular piece of work which should be available by summer 2024.
The REPS EBSA team have been invited to speak to a number of other Local Authorities about our work in this area, and have presented at a variety of conferences. Information about some of these can be found here:
March 2024: School Attendance Scotland Conference (Holyrood Insight)
EPs presented alongside Louise McCrory from Paisley Grammar School, who spoke about the school’s involvement in the EBSA pilot. You can find the slides here.
March 2024: Annual SDEP Conference
The annual SDEP conference theme this year was ‘Engagement in Learning: High Aspirations for all’. EPs presented alongside James Bowness (data & evaluation officer, Renfrewshire Council) on Renfrewshire’s use of data to inform the development of the attendance and emotionally based school avoidance toolkit. You can find the slides here.
