School attendance is once again high on the agenda. Rates of absenteeism are on the rise in several countries, and the COVID-19 pandemic is often seen as an accelerator of this trend, partly because it disrupted routines and changed perceptions of school attendance.

We have long known that frequent absence is linked to lower academic achievement, reduced engagement with school, and a greater risk of dropping out later in life. The question, then, is not only why students are absent, but also what schools can realistically do about it. To answer that question, Tarissa Hidajat and colleagues conducted a systematic review of 37 studies examining initiatives in which schools and families worked together to improve attendance.

At first glance, the conclusion seems straightforward. In 32 of the 37 studies, attendance improved. As is often the case, however, the findings become more interesting when you look beyond the headline result. Rather than focusing on whether a particular intervention worked, the authors explored how collaboration between schools and families can improve attendance.

The studies included a wide range of approaches. Some focused on clear communication about attendance and school expectations. Others helped parents support and guide their children more effectively. Some involved parents in decisions about support, while others connected families with external services. Many combined several of these elements.

The review also suggests that Joyce Epstein’s well-known model of parental involvement may be incomplete. Alongside communication, support at home, and collaboration with the wider community, the authors highlight three additional elements:

• actively building relationships between schools and families;
• strengthening parents’ ability to advocate for and support their children; and
• explicitly discussing the value of education within the family.

The authors identify three ways these approaches appear to improve attendance. First, they increase support for students. Parents gain a better understanding of what happens at school, while schools gain a clearer picture of students’ home circumstances. Second, they create alignment. Parents and schools send consistent messages about attendance and develop shared expectations. This fits well with Bronfenbrenner’s ecological perspective, which underpins much of the authors’ thinking. Third, they connect families to additional forms of support, such as transport, housing assistance, mental health care, or other services that can remove barriers to attendance.

That final point stood out to me most. Conversations about absenteeism often drift quickly toward motivation, discipline, or personal responsibility. Yet this review reminds us that attendance problems frequently reflect broader challenges. When students struggle to get to school because of instability at home, transport difficulties, or mental health concerns, stricter rules and additional conversations are unlikely to solve the problem on their own.

That said, the review also has limitations. It is not a meta-analysis, so it does not provide average effect sizes. In addition, 33 of the 37 studies were conducted in the United States. That does not make the findings irrelevant for Flanders, but it does mean we should be careful about generalising them too quickly. As so often in education research, context matters.

My main takeaway is that schools rarely solve attendance problems on their own. Attendance depends not only on what happens in classrooms, but also on what happens at home and on the support available to families. Perhaps that is why I was reminded of something Jaap Dronkers once said or wrote: education policy is family policy.