Nottingham City Council is teaming up with Capital FM to run another school attendance marketing campaign in the autumn term.

It builds on a successful gig competition in Autumn Term 2014, which culminated in a special concert for 300 pupils from six schools in January. Last year this made a huge difference to the schools who took part, increasing attendance by an average of 2% and adding an additional 5,661 school days over the term.

Results published by the Department for Education show Nottingham was the most improved local authority in the country for attendance for that term.

The campaign received a Municipal Journal Award 2015 for Delivering Better Outcomes.

This year, the Council and Capital FM are making it bigger and better for secondary schools. Nine secondary schools and academies in Nottingham are taking part for the chance to send either their best attending or best behaved tutor group to a VIP, exclusive, one-off gig. Every school gets a prize.

Music star Professor Green is fronting this year’s campaign.

Cllr Sam Webster, Portfolio Holder for Schools, said: “We’re building on a successful campaign which has a proven track record of helping us to boost school attendance. This year we’re making it bigger and better, with Capital FM bringing a major star on board to give children a real incentive to get in school to get the gig. We’re delighted be working with Professor Green.

“This is one of a range of ways we are successfully driving up attendance in Nottingham. Incentive is important, but we remain clear that children who are registered with a school have to be in that school every day unless they are too unwell to attend. We have taken a tough line on unauthorised absences, but at the same we wanted to continue to pioneer new ways to improve attendance rates further.”

Launch assemblies are taking place in the schools over the next two weeks – with the gig being held in January 2016.

You can see more about the campaign at www.getinvolvednottingham.com