What is the Virtual School?
Monitoring the attendance of children in care
It is a statutory responsibility for local authorities to collect attendance data for the children and young people in our care, from Reception to Year 11.
We commission a specialist organisation, Welfare Call, to collect attendance data every day.
Welfare Call staff make a daily phone call to every school, college or specialist provider. This includes out of county provision, where Norfolk children and young people are on roll. These calls are to confirm that the pupil is in attendance. If they are not, Welfare Call will contact the carer (where relevant) and, if necessary, the social worker. In addition, where a pupil has been excluded from school, Welfare Call will send an immediate alert to the social worker enabling them to follow up.
A number of reports, including a daily report, are available to the Virtual School for children in care. This real time data assists us with tracking patterns of attendance and exclusions. In turn it enables us to tackle underachievement where it is linked to poor attendance.