I entirely agree about identifying positive support skilled teachers do offer and I believe that this is what can be promoted in PGCE programmes. Having seen how effective the school-based component of the PGCE can be in terms of explaining to novice teachers how they can have a positive impact on school attendance I really do believe delaying explaining the 'other side of the coin' as it were (and I thought David's examples were very well chosen) would be a mistake.  It is not a matter of stressing negatives - as Kalam's research shows absenteeism is a major problem and on this list we have colleagues from many countries
- not just the UK. Thus opening up discussion like this to international debate is so useful.

What is the situation in other countries? Having some experience of research in Japan for ten years I hear that it is of growing concern there.  What about in the States, for example?

Warm regards,

Sarah

PS Our string of correspondence was getting rather lengthy so forgive me for excluding it.