GCC Attendance Guidance
The Local Authority has the power to prosecute parents who fail to secure their child's regular attendance at school.
Any queries about attendance can be discussed with your Inclusion Officer or you can contact the Attendance helpline on 01452 427274.
Introduction
This advice and guidance has been developed to be used in conjunction with the DfE guidance Working Together to Improve School Attendance.
The GCC guidance can be used by all education settings including independent schools and alternative education providers. It is intended for use by Head Teachers, Attendance Leads, Governors and Academy Trusts to support the development and review of attendance procedures.
‘Improving attendance is everyone’s business. The barriers to accessing education are wide and complex, both within and beyond the schools gates, and are often specific to individual pupils and families. The foundation of securing good attendance is that school is a calm, orderly, safe and supportive environment where all pupils want to be and are keen and ready to learn.’ DfE guidance
Regular attendance ensures that pupils reach their full potential and are given access to new experiences and opportunities, helping them to get the most of their school experience including attainment, wellbeing and their wider life chances.
For our most vulnerable pupils, regular attendance at school is an important protection factor and the best opportunity for needs to be identified and met.
As persistent absence is often a symptom of wider issues in a pupil’s life, schools, local authorities and their partners play a crucial role in overcoming barriers to attendance and ensuring all children can access the full time education to which they are entitled.
Effective Attendance Practice
The Attendance Lead should review the school’s current practices using this information to identify areas of strength as well as those requiring future development. The self-evaluation, available on Schoolsnet, may be useful to help review the statutory responsibilities. It may also be useful to view the case studies and guidance provided by the DfE and Ofsted – Improving attendance: good practice for schools and multi-academy trusts.
In accordance with the DfE guidance the government expects schools and local authorities to:
- Promote good attendance and reduce absence, including persistent absence
- Ensure every pupil has access to full time education to which they are entitled
- Act early to address patterns of absence
- Ensure parents perform their legal duty to ensure their children of compulsory school age are registered at school and attend regularly
There are three key areas that all schools should consider and address to improve the attendance of their pupils. These key areas are discussed during the Targeted Support Meetings that are being delivered by the school’s Inclusion Officer:
- Data: Does the school have accurate self knowledge about specific attendance issues?
- Systems: What is the school doing well to promote attendance and what can it do better?
- Whole school approach: Is attendance a constant feature of all aspects of school life?
The practices a school adopts can have a measurable impact on attendance rates but there is no single, prescriptive way to reduce absenteeism and promote good school attendance; each school will need to consider their local context carefully to determine the best approaches to take.
There are six main strategies schools can adopt to promote good attendance:
- Development of policy into effective practice which recognises the importance of attendance and promotes it across the school’s ethos
- Promotion of a positive school environment
- Provision of clear and high attendance expectations
- Establishment of efficient and effective day to day management of attendance issues
- Effective communication and collaboration with parents and the community
- Targeting additional support for attendance issues on priority areas of need
Good practice guidance suggests school can improve attendance by:
- Designating a member of the Senior Leadership Team as Attendance Lead
- Identifying a member of the Governing Body to take responsibility for attendance
- Producing and reviewing a whole school attendance policy which sets out how attendance in managed and what monitoring systems are in place. This should be ratified and monitored by the governing body and be on the school’s website. GCC’s draft policy is available here
- Regularly review attendance data, discuss and challenge trends and help school leaders focus improvement efforts on the individual pupils or cohorts who need it most. Setting realistic but challenging attendance targets
- Having efficient and effective registration systems which encourage punctuality and safeguard children
- Adhering to legal requirements regarding attendance and registrations
- Having efficient and timely monitoring and referral systems that identify attendance concerns, provide support an escalate to other agencies when appropriate
- Being observant and alert to changes in patterns of attendance by individual pupils as well as particular groups
- Having a rigorous approach to sanctioning holidays in term time, following the LA guidance
- Ensuring school staff receive adequate training on attendance
- Encouraging both teaching and non teaching staff to forge effective links with parents
- Sharing good practice across schools in your locality and family of schools
Attendance Self-Assessment Tool for Schools