The Background to the Ace Project

"It is through school that children earn passports to different kinds of futures - that is one of the reasons why parents care about it so passionately …… Those who don't get the passport lose out in all sorts of ways."

Sonia Jackson, Dartington Research Unit

"The overarching aim … is to deliver the target of a reduction of a third in the amount of time lost to truancy."

Report by the Government's Social Exclusion Unit, 1998

Hertfordshire’s Attendance Improvement & Pupil Support Service closely monitors all unauthorised absence from school and works with parents and carers to try to resolve any difficulties that are preventing a child's regular attendance.

The Hertfordshire Care Trust believes that children who do not attend school are in danger of missing out on many of the opportunities that lead to a happy and successful life.

For this reason, in 1999, it set up the Ace Project to support the local authority by offering children and their families additional practical support.

What is the Ace Project?

The Ace Project provides a service for children up to the age of 14 years. It works in close co-operation with schools and with Hertfordshire Attendance Improvement & Pupil Support Service, from whom it receives its referrals. It only provides help with the full agreement of the child and their parents.

It is a very flexible service, and will try to help with anything which might assist children to attend school regularly. This it does by employing carefully selected and experienced Project Workers to support an individual child, acting as a befriender and mentor and providing him/her with practical advice and assistance.

Most of the children referred to Ace come from families with a number of difficulties, and the Project helps enable parents and carers to ensure that their children attend school regularly in the long run.

The Ace Project operates in over half the county.

It covers the whole of West Hertfordshire, which includes the towns of Hemel Hempstead, St. Albans, Tring, Watford, South Oxhey, Rickmansworth and Borehamwood. More recently the project has become available to schools and families in Stevenage.

How Can Ace Help?

The reasons why children do not attend school are enormously varied, and the Ace Project therefore seeks to be extremely flexible and to tailor its support in order to meet individual need. Sometimes most of the work will be with the child, whilst sometimes most will be with the parent(s).

Sarah, for example, was depressed following the separation of her parents and needed help to boost her confidence and self-esteem. John had fears about leaving a mentally ill parent and needed constant reassurance. Kim was having difficulties in coping with the transfer to secondary school, so her Project Worker spent time in class with her. Vickie, on the other hand, was becoming increasingly confrontational with her parents and using school as the focus of her anger. In this case it was her parents whose self-confidence needed to be built up.

And the problem of school absence is not just one for secondary schools. For example, eight-year Robert’s mother had a severe drink problem, but the Ace Project worker has now succeeded in getting her back into employment. Ten-year old Daniel’s mother has died and his father suffers from severe depression and stays in bed all day, so he has many parenting needs that require to be met if he is ever to get to school. There is also the mother of three young children who was deserted by her abusive husband, leaving her in dire financial straits. All three of these cases have responded well to sympathetic but practical help from their Ace Project Worker, resulting in greatly improved school attendance on the part of the children.

All names have been changed.