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Rational decision-making can be described as a process of selecting the best option or course of action based on a careful and logical evaluation of the costs, benefits, and risks associated with each potential choice.¹

Rational truants don’t break the law to avoid education, they’re fleeing dire schools. Rational truancy happens when children experience a net negative. Attendance is pointless because their school fails to fulfil the tacit contract to educate them.

The tacit contracts that schools make to their students

Schools put stirring slogans² on their web pages. In this context they are partially advertising, partially aspirational and partially making promises. When ‘advertising’, they offer a service: effective teaching. This is their contract.

Astrea Academy Woodfields, says it’s, ‘Inspiring Beyond Measure.’ ³ This hyperbole offers a direction of travel for students. Outwood Academy Kirkby is specific, ‘Students first: raising standards and transforming lives.’⁴ A clear, unequivocal commitment to student-centred educational programmes. The phrase, ‘raising standards’ ’ refers to the government’s Progress 8 summary of the performance of schools in Britain. Progress 8 measures the improvement of students from KS2 to KS4 (see below). Atlantic Academy, Devon has the poetic, Mighty oaks, from little acorns grow.⁵ This promises significant progress from KS2 towards a positive KS4 outcome.

The importance of Progress 8 for the rational truant

Rational truants want their Key Stage 2 (KS2) qualifications enhanced by five years in secondary school. At the very least they want the momentum maintained. They know that their scores aren’t a prediction because Progress 8 is, “The academic progress that pupils make from the end of key stage 2 to the end of key stage 4. This is based on 8 qualifications.” ⁶

Progress 8 scores are a generalisation. No specific KS2 score extrapolates into a known GCSE outcome. Students both over- and under-achieve at KS2. However, for schools, it’s a scorecard about the negative or added value they have generated in five school years. Negative progress 8 scores are indicative of failure.

GCSE Grade 5+ English and Maths

Grade 5+ is the Gold Standard for 16+ students. GCSE grade 5+ English and Maths is a key performance indicator, which is essential for 16+ opportunities. Because of its central importance, the government separates out and highlights this result from all other GCSE results. The Gold Standard is quintessentially a gateway qualification and pivotal to the life-chances of students. Schools which fail to maximise the potential of their students are culpable.

Astrea Woodfields:

Doncaster is below the national average for Gold Standard GCSE grade 5+. The borough has a 42.6% outcome against 45.9% nationally. Astrea Woodfields is markedly below the borough level with 33.3%. The school is well below both local and national benchmarks.⁶

A mitigating factor is that British schools are notoriously bad at educating students who are disadvantaged. 46% of Astrea’s students are ‘disadvantaged’.

“…in 2014, only 36.5 per cent of disadvantaged pupils achieved 5 A*-C including English and maths GCSEs, compared with 64.0 per cent of other pupils.”⁷

Astrea failed disadvantaged students who sat GCSE in 2024. Just 17.3% of them achieved the Gold Standard. This compares to a borough level for all students of 49.7% and a national outcome of 53.1%. Like most British schools, Astrea Woodfields is a specialist in failure for disadvantaged students. Nationally,

“25.2% of disadvantaged pupils and 52.4% of all other pupils got a grade 5 or above.”⁸

Astrea Woodfields’s poor academic record is a contributor to rational truancy. The school’s absence and persistent absence rate is well above both the local and national statistics.⁹

Outwood Academy Kirkby:

It’s a similar story for Outwood Academy. The school’s Gold Standard score is slightly higher than Astrea at 36.1% compared to 33.3%. The local authority is more-or-less at the national benchmark for the Gold Standard.

For disadvantaged students they are below the national average but well above that of Astrea: 23.1% as opposed to 17.3%. Once more, these students only achieve about half as well as the non-disadvantaged. This smaller school has a greater percentage, 54%, of disadvantaged students. This could be an advantage for the school.Having half the school’s intake as disadvantaged means they should be expert at maximising learning potential.  But they don’t seem to have this expertise. This might be because they don’t understand that truancy could be a rational statement about the school.

Rational truancy hits hard at Outwood. In both categories of absenteeism and persistent absenteeism the outcome is double the local authority level. Persistent absenteeism is an amazing 43.3% higher.¹⁰

Atlantic Academy, Devon:

The grim story continues. Their Gold Standard result is worse than the other two highlighted schools at just 29.1%. They are markedly  below the local benchmark of 51.9%. Their disadvantaged students achieved a 20% Gold Standard outcome, which is well below the national statistics.

They have significant numbers of disadvantaged students at 45%. Because it is a small school, percentages are undoubtedly distorted by individual performances.

Absenteeism is a significant challenge. Devon has worse than average absenteeism in both categories; absenteeism and persistent absenteeism. Atlantic Academy is worse than even the poor local benchmark in both categories.

Conclusion

Britain’s notorious failure to educate disadvantaged children is writ large in these three schools. They all have large numbers in their intake with one, Outwood Kirkby, having more than 50%. Unless it’s believed that disadvantaged students are incapable of achieving the Gold Standard, then all three schools are culpable of selling students short. And the consequence is that they are severely damaging their students’ life-chances.

Because schooling is compulsory, students are blamed for truancy as if it is random lawbreaking. They are breaking the law, which is blameworthy, but there is more at stake. Attendance at school is meant to be a net positive but what if it palpably isn’t? Is the school provoking truancy through their inability to fulfil the tacit contract? It isn’t only disadvantaged students that are under-achieving in these schools: all three are academcally weak. If truancy is rational then the onus shifts to the organisation and management of the school.

What are schools doing so badly that they provoke significant law-breaking? Perhaps they should employ an independent focus group to find out what their consumers don’t like.

Notes

1 What is Rational Choice Decision Making? | Reference Library | Economics | tutor2u

2 https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/slogan

3 KS3/4 – How is Progress 8 calculated? – Juniper Education (New)

4 Outwood Grange Academy

5 Mighty oaks from little acorns grow | English Idioms and Phrases

6 Disadvantaged pupils are those who were eligible for free school meals at any time during the last 6 years and children looked after (in the care of the local authority for a day or more or who have been adopted from care). Results by pupil characteristics – Astrea Academy Woodfields – Compare school and college performance data in England – GOV.UK

7 Supporting the attainment of disadvantaged pupils (publishing.service.gov.uk) 

8 Attainment at age 16 – Social Mobility Commission State of the Nation – GOV.UK

9 Astrea Academy Woodfields – Compare school and college performance data in England – GOV.UK

10 Outwood Academy Kirkby – Compare school and college performance data in England – GOV.UK

11 Results by pupil characteristics – Atlantic Academy – Compare school and college performance data in England – GOV.UK