Truancy refers to the act of students avoiding going to school. It is often regarded as an early symptom of potential delinquency and should be addressed at the outset in order for it to be combated in the best possible way.
Build Positive Relationships with Students
One of the best ways of combating truancy is for you as a teacher to build positive relationships with your students. You ought to try and get to know what they like or dislike about attending school and win their trust and confidence by asking more about their interests.
Discuss Truancy with Parents
Truancy should be discussed with parents as much as possible. Parents often have to work long hours and students are unable to attend school due to there being no babysitter at home.
At times students are known not to attend school because there is no alarm clock at home that can help them to rise on time. This, unfortunately, discloses that attending school is never a priority for such students.
By discussing truancy with parents, you get to know if your student has conflicting obligations and whether there are challenges at home that prevent your truant students from coming to school as regularly as they could have.
Create a Progressive Environment in the Class
Creating a progressive environment in your classroom is another wonderful way by which, you can prevent your students from being truant. Encourage your students to actively participate in classroom activities by getting them involved in hands-on projects.
You can also work with all the truant students in your class in supportive groups that are small in size. Students in such groups are taught at the instructional level that is best suited to their interests.
Avoid Giving Bad Grades
You can avoid triggering or worsening the tendency to be truant among your students by failing them in class tests for poor attendance. Truant students are often bright and giving them negative grades can lead you to instigate reactionary behavior, making them more stubborn and insolent than they otherwise were.
Make Sure not to Ignore Risk Characteristics
Risk characteristics like addictions and abuse should also not be ignored if you want to stop your students from playing truant. Students who are tardy to class or are regularly absent may also be caught up in inappropriate relationships.
Thus, by keeping the above-mentioned points in mind, you can successfully help your students to stop being truant and pay more attention in class.