Attendance Beyond the Stats: Rethinking Inclusion, Connection, and Belonging with Beth Gibson MBE

In this episode, host Jessica Parker is joined by Beth Gibson MBE, Head of Attendance and Inclusive Pathways at Birmingham City Council and former mainstream secondary leader. Together, they dive into why school attendance must be understood as a form of communication - reflecting safety, relationships, and belonging - rather than just a percentage or compliance metric to be managed. 

Jessica and Beth explore:

• Data as a Signal, Not the Story: How rich attendance data can automate workload and serve as a curiosity hook, helping educators ask the right questions at the right time rather than obscuring the human child behind the numbers. 
• Redefining Inclusive Pathways: Unpicking complex attendance challenges like EBSNA (Emotional Based School Avoidance/Non-Attendance) layer by layer, and recognising that inclusion applies to every learner - from children navigating friendship shifts to those communicating distress through behaviour. 
• Combating Isolation & Restoring Joy: The cumulative impact of shrinking social spaces, reduced extracurricular access, and child loneliness, alongside practical ways schools can introduce play, options, and felt safety during unstructured social times. 
• Building Authentic Home-School Partnerships: How schools can lower parental anxiety, remove shame and blame from attendance communications, and foster open, honest collaboration focused on the shared goal of a thriving child. 
• Accountability, Leadership & Culture: Balancing trauma-informed compassion with a child's right to education, and embedding attendance as a shared, whole-school responsibility across every tier of senior leadership and staff. 

About Beth Gibson MBE

Beth Gibson MBE has spent nearly 20 years working in mainstream secondary education, spending over a decade leading pastorally on attendance, inclusion, and belonging. Her background includes working with the Department for Education (DfE) on attendance data systems and supporting school teams across the country. 

Currently, Beth heads up Attendance and Inclusive Pathways for Birmingham City Council - the largest local authority in Europe - where she works on a macro scale to develop inclusive practice, strengthen multi-agency approaches, and champion trauma-informed, child-centred education. 

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