Stone, Frances; (2025) Supporting school attendance: what can be learned from local authority educational psychologists in England? Doctoral thesis (D.Ed.Psy), UCL (University College London).

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Abstract

The numbers of children and young people (CYP) experiencing school attendance difficulties continues to be a prominent concern across England. There have been ongoing efforts to understand what may be causing and maintaining these difficulties, with an increase in qualitative studies exploring the voices of CYP, parents and professionals. This research highlights commonalities in effective support and often culminates in implications for, or that have relevance to, educational psychologists (EPs). However, the roles and perspectives of EPs in relation to supporting extended school non-attendance (ESNA) seems to be a relatively under-explored area of research. This thesis aimed to address this by investigating the role of EPs across England in ESNA support, the barriers and facilitators they encountered within this, and what EPs perceived to be the impact of this support. A convergent mixed methods research design was utilised to facilitate both broad and in-depth insights into the research questions, consisting of a questionnaire and one-to-one, semi-structured interviews. EPs and trainee EPs working in local authority educational psychology services were invited to participate. Descriptive and inferential statistics, content analysis and reflexive thematic analysis were used to analyse the data, the findings of which were drawn together through meta-inferences. These indicated that: EPs continue to have a role in shaping a flexible and shared narrative around ESNA; there are tensions within the EP role, for instance, regarding how EPs want to support ESNA versus how they actually can; pockets of hope exist through the development of pathway approaches and EPs’ skills in facilitating collaboration; understanding impact of ESNA-related work is challenging but necessary. Implications of these findings are discussed in relation to EPs and the wider connotations for the current education system. The thesis culminates in considering the strengths and limitations of the research, alongside potential avenues for future research.

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