The Education Endowment Foundation (EEF) and the Youth Endowment Fund (YEF) partnered to commission a series of research projects to identify the most effective approaches for helping pupils at the highest risk of absenteeism and/​or exclusion. These projects aimed to support pupils in attending, positively engaging with, and remaining in school or college, to improve their attainment and reduce the likelihood of them becoming involved in violence. The BITUP trial was funded through this round.

The intervention was based on the theory that parents and carers may be unaware of, or underestimate, their child’s absence rate. Communicating absences in terms of days – rather than a percentage, which schools typically use – was thought to be easier to understand and more meaningful for parents and carers. In addition, personalised messages from schools are expected to prompt action, with an opportunity for a fresh-start to improve attendance, unlike more general communication. The approach draws on research from both the UK and the US, which found that sending parents and carers updates on the number of days of school their child had missed led to reductions in absence, particularly among socio-economically disadvantaged pupils.

BITUP was evaluated through a two-arm randomised controlled trialAn RCT is used evaluate an educational programme by assigning settings to one of two groups: the intervention group, who receive the programme or the control group, who continue with business as usual. This ensures that any differences in outcomes can be confidently attributed to the programme, providing a robust estimate of the impact and contributing to the evidence for what works in improving educational outcomes. during the 2023 – 2024 school year. The findings from this trial have a high-security rating.

Pupils in the intervention groupAs part of a Randomised Controlled Trial (RCT), settings will be randomised into either the intervention or control group. Settings in the intervention group will receive the programme being tested. were, on average, absent for 0.21 fewer days across the academic year compared to those in the control groupAs part of a Randomised Controlled Trial (RCT), settings will be randomised into either the intervention or control group. Settings in the control group continue with their usual practices and help provide a comparison to measure the intervention’s impact. They are usually offered a monetary compensation as thanks for their contribution.. This equates to an 0.10 percentage point increase in the average pupil attendance rate across half-terms two to six. The programme had a larger impact on pupils eligible for free school meals, female pupils and Year 8 (who were on average absent for 0.51, 0.35 and 0.61 fewer days across the year). These results may have a lower security rating than the overall findings due to a smaller number of pupils.

The evaluation found no conclusive evidence that receiving a text message improved parents and carers ’ knowledge of their child’s absence rate or changed their perceptions about the importance of attendance. However, findings from surveys and interviews with parents and carers indicated that some did take action after receiving the messages. Reported actions included speaking to their child about attendance, contacting the school, or monitoring attendance more closely.

The reduction in absence seen was small compared to what is needed to meaningfully shift attendance rates, and therefore, taken alone, it is unlikely this approach is highly promising in reducing pupil absence. When comparing this result to previous similar studies of parental communication approaches internationally, it may be that sharing days of school missed in letters rather than text messages and/​or further practical support and tip sharing are required within communication to parents/​carers to see larger effects. However, given the very low cost, there are aspects of this approach that some schools may want to consider in their approach to communicating with parents about attendance, which are detailed further below under implementation.

• There were 108 schools involved in the trial. Three schools withdrew and 105 state-maintained secondary schools across England were included in the final analysis.
• The trial used family-level randomisation within schools, so siblings attending the same school were in the same trial arm. This meant that schools had families in both intervention and control arms.
• At randomisation trial included 87,909 families of 104,029 pupils, of which there were 30,162 pupils who were eligible for Free School Meals (FSM), 77,540 (74.5%) pupils were white, 9,235 (8.9%) were Asian or Asian British, 5,947 (5.7%) were Black, Black British, Caribbean or African, 27 (0.3%) were Gypsy, Roma and
• Traveller, 6,639 (6.4%) identified as having mixed or multiple ethnicity, and 2,277 (2.2%) were of another minority ethnicity.
• Any pupils, and their families, across Year 7 –11 whose attendance was below 95% in any given half-term in the school year 2023 – 2024, were eligible for the intervention. During the trial, 71,916 pupils from 63,295 families were eligible for the intervention in at least one term.

• As well as providing the schools with the pre-filled personalised messages, BIT also provided guidance and ad hoc support.
• Schools were guided not to send messages to families where it was deemed inappropriate – such as in cases of bereavement or long-term illness – however, evaluation findings indicate that this guidance was not always followed by schools.
• While most school staff were supportive of the intervention, there was no evidence to confirm the assumption in the theory of change that the programme could free up staff capacity for more targeted attendance support. It’s possible that over time sending messages could become quicker and easier as staff become more familiar with the process.
• Schools generally viewed BITUP as a potentially useful low-cost addition to their arsenal of tools to support attendance, but this view was shaped by school capacity, technology systems, and processes.
• The ease and administrative burden of implementation depended on the functionality of schools’ existing attendance and messaging systems. Most interviewed schools were able to upload personalised data and send individual messages in bulk with ease. However, some schools used different platforms such as Edulink, which were described as having limited compatibility with the intervention and required more administrative effort to personalise data.
• Many schools indicated they intended to continue using the intervention in the next academic year, with some adaptations. For example, some schools felt that targeting the messages specifically at pupils whose attendance fell just below the 95% benchmark could improve the effectiveness of the approach.
• Overall, parents reported that it was helpful to understand absence as the number of school days missed as opposed to just attendance percentage rates, which could be integrated into wider school attendance communication.