{"id":456377,"date":"2026-05-19T09:24:08","date_gmt":"2026-05-19T09:24:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/456377\/"},"modified":"2026-05-19T09:24:08","modified_gmt":"2026-05-19T09:24:08","slug":"schools-bribing-pupils-with-pizza-in-bid-to-boost-school-attendance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/456377\/","title":{"rendered":"Schools ‘bribing’ pupils with pizza in bid to boost school attendance"},"content":{"rendered":"

Schools are offering rewards, vouchers, or \u201cbribery\u201d 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.<\/p>\n

Offering rewards as means to drive attendance \u201cat all costs\u201d disproportionately affects neurodivergent or marginalised children who are struggling to attend school in the first place, according to Neurodiversity Ireland chief executive Nessa Hill.<\/p>\n

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. <\/p>\n

At the same time, there is little official data examining the factors behind \u201cskyrocketing\u201d numbers of children who are not able to attend school, she said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s bribery. Examples would be pizza tokens or hot chocolate tokens, things like that,\u201d said Ms Hill.<\/p>\n

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).<\/p>\n

Ms Hill said: \u201cThat\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

\u201cSimply rewarding attendance is misconceived. It\u2019s targeting a symptom rather than the issue itself.\u201d<\/p>\n

In 2024, the Department of Education\u2019s inspectorate noted that some young people reported the limited value of \u201cextrinsic motivators\u201d 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.<\/p>\n

Teacher Jane O\u2019Neill said: \u201cAll of these reward schemes disproportionately impact neurodivergent children and marginalised children who are struggling to attend school in the first place. <\/p>\n

“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.”<\/p>\n

\"NeurodiversityNeurodiversity Ireland chief executive Nessa Hill said ‘Simply rewarding attendance is misconceived. It\u2019s targeting a symptom rather than the issue itself.’ Picture: neurodiversityireland.com<\/p>\n

Rewards could be something like a pizza party for the class with the best attendance, she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou 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\u2019ll affect a child who has emotional school avoidance.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt could actually increase the pressure on children who are already struggling.\u201d<\/p>\n

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

\u201cWithin Anseo, incentives are used as part of a universal, relationship-based approach within the tiered attendance model.\u201d<\/p>\n

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 \u201crequiring more targeted and intensive supports through the higher tiers of the attendance model\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jess Casey is Education Correspondent.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Schools are offering rewards, vouchers, or \u201cbribery\u201d such as pizza and hot chocolate as incentives to boost school…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":456378,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[72,835,61,60],"class_list":["post-456377","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-business","tag-education","tag-ie","tag-ireland"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/456377","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=456377"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/456377\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/456378"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=456377"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=456377"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=456377"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}