Schools ‘bribing’ pupils with pizza in bid to boost school attendance

Schools are offering rewards, vouchers, or “bribery” such as pizza and hot chocolate as incentives to boost school attendance, while the measures targeting long-term absences miss the point, a charity has warned.

Offering rewards as means to drive attendance “at all costs” disproportionately affects neurodivergent or marginalised children who are struggling to attend school in the first place, according to Neurodiversity Ireland chief executive Nessa Hill.

Using rewards to reinforce attendance acts as a form of positive reinforcement, which the National Council for Special Education has recommended a move away from, she said.

At the same time, there is little official data examining the factors behind “skyrocketing” numbers of children who are not able to attend school, she said. 

“It’s bribery. Examples would be pizza tokens or hot chocolate tokens, things like that,” said Ms Hill.

Schools were recently issued with a once-off attendance grant by the Department of Education as part of a national campaign on school attendance overseen by the Tusla Education Support Service (TESS).

Ms Hill said: “That’s trying to solve a problem without actually understanding why the problem is there, or where the problem is, or who the kids are that are not able to attend school.

“Simply rewarding attendance is misconceived. It’s targeting a symptom rather than the issue itself.”

In 2024, the Department of Education’s inspectorate noted that some young people reported the limited value of “extrinsic motivators” such as rewards or prizes in encouraging them to attend school. The attendance grant was issued after data found non-attendance is significantly higher now than it was pre-pandemic.

Teacher Jane O’Neill said: “All of these reward schemes disproportionately impact neurodivergent children and marginalised children who are struggling to attend school in the first place.

“A child who is already struggling to attend school, then is feeling this pressure. Sometimes, it can be a whole class reward for the best attendance in the school.”

Neurodiversity Ireland chief executive Nessa Hill said ‘Simply rewarding attendance is misconceived. It’s targeting a symptom rather than the issue itself.’ Picture: neurodiversityireland.com

Rewards could be something like a pizza party for the class with the best attendance, she said.

“You can imagine that would disproportionately impact a child who is receiving treatment for a chronic illness; it will disproportionately affect an autistic child who is in burnout; it’ll affect a child who has emotional school avoidance.

“It could actually increase the pressure on children who are already struggling.”

A spokeswoman for Tusla said TESS is implementing the Anseo model, which has a multi-tiered system of supports with schools.

“Within Anseo, incentives are used as part of a universal, relationship-based approach within the tiered attendance model.”

Reward-based initiatives are not intended as interventions for students experiencing long term or chronic absence, she said, adding that these students are identified as “requiring more targeted and intensive supports through the higher tiers of the attendance model”.

“The focus for these students is on relationship-building, engagement with families, individualised planning, and multi-agency or therapeutic supports where appropriate, rather than incentive-based approaches alone.”

Jess Casey is Education Correspondent.