Object

• child: Many children truanted from school to help on the farm at busy times.

• parent: A further study ( Kinder & Wilkin, 1998 ) explores the views of truanting children's parents.

Preposition: at

• school: Truants at secondary schools said they truanted because they were bored with school.

Adjective modifier

• persistent: However, despite a raft of punitive measures designed to bring persistent truants to book, the problem refuses to go away.

• serial: This will now target more than 10,000 serial truants who account for 1 in 5 of all instances of truancy in England.

• chronic: Set up special centers or units for chronic truants.

• regular: The do-gooders continued to protest despite reports flooding in from around the country of regular truants being hauled off to school by shocked parents.

• frequent: We recognize that a group of children at particular disadvantage are those who are excluded from school or who are frequent truants.

Modifies a noun

• officer: A truant officer will be assigned to each family in order to work with them to improve their child's attendance at school.

• school: Date 1 Two fifteen year old Liverpool truants rediscover school and pin their hopes on a trip to the school summer camp.

• child: Parents found to be with their truant child, are quizzed over their child's absence from school.

• year: Angry that a million children played truant last year - over 200,000 more than in 1997.

Used with adjective complement

• play: Some kids play truant in order to spend time with friends in their home area.

Noun used with modifier

• school: In the libraries visited, this profile characterized some of the male unemployed library users aged 18-25 and school truants.

Infinitive complement

• go: Ten per cent of young people admitted to playing truant to go to paid work.

Modifying Another Word

• persistently: If your child persistently truants or fails to attend school regularly the Local Authority may decide on taking legal action to ensure their attendance.

• regularly: Zoe was regularly truanting, had a very poor relationship with her mother and sister, and was not trusted.

• often: Some were often truant from school, and others had been in trouble with the local Police.

• not: Question number 7. Do you think that parents should be held responsible for ensuring that their children do not truant from school?

Preposition: from

• school: Around 40 % of these children play truant from school in order to work.