How a pilot study in a northern Manitoba school turned years of teacher hunches into hard evidence — and made attendance one of the clearest ways Spirit North measures its impact.
Attendance matters: it is one of the single strongest predictors of a student’s eventual graduation from high school, which in turn shapes income, health, and general stability over a lifetime.
“We have tried other things to increase attendance at our school, but nothing is as successful as Spirit North coming to town.”
On a regular week, West Lynn Heights School juggles the many challenges that come with low attendance rates amongst their grade 7 to 12 students. But on a Spirit North week (when the gym fills with games, laughter, and familiar faces the kids have come to trust) attendance climbs, sometimes dramatically. Teachers had been telling Spirit North this for years. Now, for the first time, there's data to back it up.
“Literally half an hour with you guys makes them come to school the entire day. When the kids come, they can go to class and do their work,” says the school's Phys-Ed teacher, one of several staff who took part in Spirit North's first formal attendance study.
A Hunch Worth Testing
Spirit North has often heard the same story from educators across the country: attendance goes up the week Spirit North is in the building. It's the kind of feedback that comes up again and again, but until now, it had never been tested against real attendance records.
That gap is what led Spirit North to design the Lynn Lake Attendance Study: a pilot project built to find out whether the pattern educators kept describing was actually showing up in the numbers, and why.
What the Numbers Show
Spirit North compared one baseline week of attendance records at West Lynn Heights School to a week that included four days of programming, tracking all 87 students in grades 7 through 12 and following up with interviews and surveys of students, the Phys-Ed teacher, and the principal.
29%
increase in total attendance during Spirit North week
37%
of students improved their individual attendance
100%
of students surveyed said they want to be at school on Spirit North days
And the voices behind the numbers are just as telling.
“There was a lot of times where I was gonna quit school. But then, like, you guys would come here, and I’d be like, maybe I could come just to have fun.”
Why It Works: The Bridges Kids Are Actually Crossing
The study didn't just confirm that attendance goes up, it started to explain why. Across every source of data, three themes kept surfacing as the drivers: relationship and connection with Spirit North leaders and peers, joy and fun, and a genuine sense of inclusion and belonging.
“We see an increase in attendance every time Spirit North comes to our school, which means there are more students in their classrooms learning.””
These aren't separate from academic success, they're the bridge to it. Staff described a ripple effect that reached beyond the gym and into the classroom.
Building a Weekly Rhythm
Because Lynn Lake sits more than 1,000 kilometres from Winnipeg, Spirit North runs a travelling program there, with leaders delivering blocks of two to four consecutive program days at a time. Programs Leads Taylor and Camryn have also been experimenting with after-school programming in the community, hoping to keep engagement up throughout the school week.
"Running programs outside of school has led to major growth in our relationships with the youth in Lynn Lake...we have noticed an increase in trust and respect between us, the youth, and the greater community." - Camryn Lloyd, Community Program Leader
What's Next
The Lynn Lake study was always intended as a pilot; a deliberately small test of whether Spirit North's effect on attendance could be measured, not just described. It worked, and the evidence was compelling enough that we are now considering a larger, organization-wide version of the project.
For now, the story out of West Lynn Heights School is a simple one: when Spirit North shows up, kids show up too. And in a school where getting students through the door has long been one of the toughest challenges, that's a bridge worth building.
Made Possible With SunLife
For six years, Sun Life has been a dedicated partner of Spirit North, helping create consistent opportunities for Indigenous children and youth to experience the joy of sport, land-based activity, and community connection. Their long-term support has helped strengthen programs, deepen relationships, and expand impact across the communities we serve.
