Making School Unmissable

Coming Soon

Making School Unmissable

Schooling that makes sense

By: Rachel Macfarlane , Paul Jenkins

$24.95

Qty:

Products specifications

Attribute name	Attribute value
Format	Paperback
Published	June 2026
ISBN	9781785837944
Size	234 x 156mm
Pages	240

Exploring why school no longer feels essential for everyone—and how educators can reignite that engagement, meaning and make it impossible to miss again.

Making School Unmissable explores a pressing challenge in modern education: too many students, parents and even staff no longer see school as compelling or even interesting. Despite the transformative power of education, rising absenteeism, disengaged students and families and a stressed workforce reveal a disconnect that threatens learning, development and community. Drawing on research, case studies and real-world insights, this book examines why school can too often feel ‘missable’—and how that perception can be reversed.

The authors introduce a framework built around five essential senses: Purpose, Belonging, Success, Empowerment and Adventure. These senses provide the foundation for an education that is engaging, inclusive and meaningful—not only preparing learners for the future but making school fulfilling in the present. Through practical strategies, exercises and thought-provoking questions, educators are invited to reflect on their own settings and explore how to foster these senses for students, staff and families alike.

From school leaders to classroom teachers, this book offers a flexible approach to developing a culture where school is not just compulsory, but compelling. Optimistic and actionable, it equips educators with the tools and mindset to make every school day count, ensuring that learning is experienced as vibrant, relevant and unmissable.

A must-read for teachers and school leaders – in any setting.

Rachel Macfarlane

Rachel Macfarlane is Lead Adviser for Underserved Learners at HFL Education. She was Director of Education Services at HFL from 2018-23 and prior to this, Headteacher of three contrasting schools for over 16 years. In 2011, Rachel set up an all-through 4-18 academy in Ilford. This was judged to be outstanding in all areas by Ofsted in 2014 and 2018.

Paul Jenkins

Paul Jenkins has worked in education for over 25 years. Trained in English, Drama and Media Studies, he has taught a range of subjects up to A-level. As a leader, he worked as Head of VI Form, Deputy Head, Headteacher and Executive Headteacher. He currently works as an educational consultant for standards and curriculum. He has mentored and trained new headteachers and written articles and award-winning scripts for theatre and television.

Reviews

Dr Tim Coulson CBE, Director General, Regions Group, DfE
Making School Unmissable confronts the uncomfortable truth that school is currently very missable for many young people. Unsurprisingly, as it’s written by two authors with a combined seven decades of experience in schools, it is deeply practical about what leaders can do to make education as unmissable as it has been for those like me who have great memories of school. Rachel and Paul go far beyond platitudes about belonging, however, as they deftly grapple with the challenges of contemporary society and schooling.
Children whose school leaders engage with this book will see their friends want to, rather than have to, come to school.
Tier Blundell, Chief Executive of Excluded from School
This book captures the kind of change education desperately needs. For underserved learners like I was, school can become a place where rejection is reinforced and difference goes unseen or ignored. Macfarlane and Jenkins understand that deeply. They show that achieving real equity is not just about raising aspirations, but about building schools where every learner is genuinely seen, valued, related to and given a place to belong. This work is urgent and would have a made a meaningful difference in my life had it been implemented. Therefore, every leader serious about equity and outcomes for all learners should read this book.
Sufian Sadiq, Chief Talent and Transformation Officer Chiltern Learning Trust
In Making School Unmissable, Macfarlane and Jenkins offer a timely, heart-centred response to the national attendance crisis. Moving beyond punitive measures, they argue that school must be made compelling, not just compulsory.
They introduce a transformative ‘five senses’ framework – purpose, belonging, success, empowerment and adventure – as an antidote to a system that too often fails the doubtful student, staff member and parent. The authors also brilliantly demonstrate how shifting from competitive to ipsative success, focusing on beating one’s personal best, can re-engage those whom the system has historically bypassed. And as an advocate for the underserved, I found their focus on unbelonging and proximal stress for minoritised groups particularly vital.
Through vibrant case studies, from sandpits to social action, this book is a masterclass in how schools can build a culture of agency. It is essential reading for any educator committed to ensuring that school is a place of joy and significance for every child.
Mick Waters, Educationalist and author
Making School Unmissable is a book that will help to make the job of teaching feel really enriching. It speaks to schools about why they exist and how they can make every child believe they matter.
Manny Botwe, head teacher, Tytherington School, president, Association of School and College Leaders
Persistent disengagement and absence have become the education challenge of our generation. The sheer complexity of the problem can leave leaders feeling either defeated or trapped in the paralysis of analysis. Making School Unmissable brings clarity to the conversation. It draws the data together, reframes the purpose of education and offers a persuasive framework for restoring the senses of belonging and adventure that young people crave. Most importantly, it moves beyond diagnosis and into action – giving school leaders tangible strategies to make attending school both compelling and joyful.
Liz Robinson, CEO, Big Education
This book speaks directly to an urgent challenge: the need for every young person to be included in rich and high-quality education of the ‘head, heart and hand’. Rachel Macfarlane and Paul Jenkins begin by powerfully articulating the problem – that for all our focus on academic rigour (the ‘head’), ‘too many hearts remain distinctly unconvinced’ by the current educational offer. They then uncover the core truth that school improvement is about winning hearts and minds, and the failure to convince pupils and parents of its transformative value is a failure to reach those who would benefit most.
Making School Unmissable is a vital, insightful and practical text for every school leader. It provides a roadmap for creating a school experience so rich, purposeful and compelling that it becomes genuinely essential: an environment that children simply cannot bear to miss.
Geoff Barton, former teacher, head teacher and union leader
Amid so much gloom about education, here at last is a book that is unflinching in recognising the problems but also sets out a series of solutions. Without being soppy or trite, Macfarlane and Jenkins provide a call-to-arms for how all of us involved in education might better engage those young people who see schooling as marginal or irrelevant. Making School Unmissable mixes principles with strong evidence and practical proposals. Recommended reading.
Baroness Estelle Morris
Rachel Macfarlane and Paul Jenkins have built on their wide experience and successful practice to write a book which addresses one of the most difficult issues facing schools today. The volumes of texts that already exist on school improvement are so often based on the assumption that the child is attending school and willing to learn. Making School Unmissable makes a strong argument that the prerequisite of this – getting children and families to engage – is now so critical that it needs to be addressed more seriously.
This is a book that will make you think, but also set you on a pathway to responding to what is undoubtedly a question for our times.
Ellie Costello, Executive Director, Square Peg
This is an essential, timely and transformative book in which Rachel Macfarlane and Paul Jenkins offer a robust, compassionate and urgently needed framework to address the challenges around school attendance and exclusion.

The authors’ articulation of why traditional arguments fail – especially the reliance on delayed gratification – is insightful and essential reading for all educators. This book is not just a book; it is a mission statement for whole-school change. It provides the language and strategic lens required to build an ethos, culture and curriculum that ensures no child risks becoming invisible to the system.

Vital and inspiring, Making School Unmissable should be required reading for anyone serious about tackling the engagement crisis and ensuring every young person thrives.
Professor Bill Lucas, author, education reformer and co-founder of Rethinking Assessment
What’s brilliant about Making School Unmissable is that, without underplaying the extent of the challenges, it offers practical ways of reimagining schools so that everyone wants to be there and all can flourish. We need five ‘senses’, the authors argue, to understand the point of school, to share a common identity, to celebrate the strengths of all young people, to boost their learning power and to create a sense of adventure. Simple really! Get yourself a copy of this book and you’ll see these senses make great sense!