Whole School Approaches

This section identifies the key features of robust attendance practice and how these elements are explored throughout the toolkit. The Attendance Lead should review the school's current practices using this information to identify areas of strength as well as those requiring further development. Schools and MATS may find it helpful to read this section alongside the case studies provided by the Department for Education: Improving attendance: good practice for schools and multi-academy trusts

Central to raising standards in education and ensuring all pupils can fulfil their potential is an assumption so widely understood that it is insufficiently stated - pupils need to attend school regularly to benefit from their education. Missing out on lessons leaves children vulnerable to falling behind. Children with poor attendance tend to achieve less in both primary and secondary school. (School attendance: guidance for schools, DfE (2020) (opens new window))

The government expects schools and local authorities to:

1. Promote good attendance and reduce absence, including persistent absence
2. Ensure every pupil has access to full-time education to which they are entitled
3. Act early to address patterns of absence
4. Ensure parents perform their legal duty to ensure their children of compulsory school age are registered at school and attend regularly.

Broadly speaking there are three key areas that all schools should consider and address to improve the attendance of their pupils:

1. Data: Does the school have accurate self-knowledge about specific attendance issues?
2. Systems: What is the school doing well to promote attendance and what can it do better?
3. 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. This Toolkit is intended to support schools to evaluate the practice and procedures in place.

There are six main strategies schools can adopt to promote good school attendance:

• Development of policy into effective practice which recognises the importance of school 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 that schools can improve attendance by:

1. Designating a member of the Senior Management Team as Attendance Lead.
2. Identifying a member of the Governing Body to take responsibility for attendance. Other governors may also play a more active role in monitoring individual cases where this is part of the school's attendance policy.
3. Producing and reviewing a whole school attendance policy, which sets out how attendance is managed and what monitoring systems are in place. This should be ratified and monitored by the governing body.
4. 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.
5. Having efficient and effective registration systems which encourage punctuality and safeguard children.
6. Adhering to legal requirements regarding attendance and registration.
7. Having efficient and timely monitoring and referral systems that identify attendance concerns, provide support and escalate to other agencies when appropriate.
8. Being observant and alert to changes in patterns of attendance by individual pupils as well as particular groups.
9. Having a rigorous approach to sanctioning holidays in term time, following the LA guidance.
10. Ensuring school staff receive adequate training on attendance.
11. Encouraging both teaching and non-teaching staff to forge effective links with parents.
12. Sharing good practice locally across families of schools.

An  attendance practice checklist (Word doc) [54KB] has been devised to support Headteachers, Attendance Leads and Governors to review attendance practices in line with the key features identified in this section. It is recommended that a review of practice is undertaken at least annually. This checklist has been designed to support Attendance Leads, Headteachers and Governing Boards to undertake a check to ensure that the school is compliant with statutory guidance.

In addition to a regular review of practice, the school should ensure that the Governing Body receives regular reports on how the school manages the attendance function. Download the governors report template (PDF) [156KB]. The practice checklist and a detailed report submitted to the Governing Body facilitate rigorous monitoring of the attendance function to ensure compliance with statutory guidance and legislation. Such systems will also support the school to identify areas for improvement beyond minimum statutory requirements.

Whole school attendance policy

A clear and comprehensive attendance policy is the cornerstone for good attendance practice. This section outlines the key components of an effective policy and provides a framework for schools to review and develop their existing documents. Download a guide to writing a whole school attendance policy (PDF) [85KB].

A good quality attendance policy should set out its systems and procedures for ensuring regular school attendance and investigating the underlying causes of poor attendance. It is a live working document that allows all parties to clearly understand the procedures and attendance expectations. The policy must be fit for purpose and accurately reflect the attendance practice in school. It should reflect the school's specific requirements, such as setting, pupil ages and percentages of pupils with special educational needs. It should be reviewed annually to ensure it remains relevant and effective.

The policy will be more meaningful if developed in consultation with teachers, pupils, families, governors, support staff and senior leaders. All these individuals are directly or indirectly responsible for promoting good attendance.

The policy needs to be available to all staff and parents/carers. Hard copies can be kept in the school office and it should be made publicly available via the school's website.

Summary of elements in a good policy

• Aim of the policy (school ethos)
• Reference to statutory framework and relevant guidance
• Definitions of absence and attendance
• Categorisation of absence and attendance
• School term dates
• The attendance and punctuality expectations of pupils and parents, including school day start and end times, details of when registers close and the processes for requesting leave and reporting absence
• School stance on term time holidays including the point at which FPNs will be sought
• Procedures for the deletion of pupil's names from the register
• Roles and responsibilities of school staff, parents and pupils
• The name and contact information for key staff including the senior leader responsible for the strategic approach to attendance and details of the school staff who pupils and parents should contact about attendance on a day-to-day basis
• The school's day to day processes for managing attendance, for example first day calling and processes to follow up on unexplained absence, support systems, rewards
• The school's strategy for reducing persistent and severe absence, including how access to wider support services will be provided to remove the barriers to attendance and when support will be formalised in conjunction with the local authority
• Links to related policies (safeguarding, SEN, admissions)

Key questions to consider when developing your school attendance policy and practices

• How will you seek the views of children to inform your approach to promoting good attendance?
• How will your ethos and goals inform your approach to promoting good attendance?
• How will you communicate your policies to everyone involved with the school, including parents, and ensure they contribute and take ownership?
• How will you make sure your policy links to other pertinent statutory policies including safeguarding, behaviour and bullying?
• Who will be accountable and responsible for what?
• How will you set clear and high standards using positive language?
• How will you use rewards and sanctions?
• What support and training will you provide for all staff, including non-teaching staff and governors?
• What support will you provide for parents and carers who want to learn more about how to help their children do well?
• How will you monitor and evaluate your policies and consult on reviewing them so that they are fair and applied consistently?

Read the NCC model attendance policy (Word doc) [134KB]. The purpose is to provide a suggested framework for a policy providing example elements, structures and information commonly found in such policies. Schools and Academies must ensure that any policies derived from the guidance in this model policy reflect their own specific requirements, such as setting, pupil ages, and percentages of pupils with special educational needs.

Roles and responsibilities

It is important that all members of the school community understand what is expected of them in line with the school's attendance policy and procedures. This section provides an overview of the suggested roles and responsibilities of all staff and governors.

Suggested roles and responsibilities of staff

The greatest difference to improving attendance will be made by the school itself. There should be robust systems in place to track and monitor any deterioration in attendance or of developing patterns of absence at an early stage. Intervention at this point can prevent problems escalating. Therefore, schools should have their own plan for improving attendance. This should be a whole school approach where there is a designated senior leader responsible for driving improvements forward with all other members of the school community having clearly defined responsibilities.

The Attendance Lead

As part of the school/academy pastoral team, the Attendance Lead will:

• Lead on and be accountable for all aspects of attendance across the academy, co-ordinating attendance work and ensuring that a clear and robust action plan exists to both incentivise good attendance whilst also challenging poor attendance through targeted intervention, support and formal intervention where required.
• Be a role model in attendance procedures, supporting the day-to-day operations of the staff dealing with attendance and taking an active part in ensuring that pupils arrive to school on time, in the correct uniform and ready to learn every day, communicating key messages to pupils and parents.
• Offering a clear vision for attendance improvement, evaluating and monitoring expectations and processes, oversight of data analysis.
• Challenge individual pupils whose attendance is below the national average, forming strong links with the parents and carers of pupils with persistent absence.

General duties and responsibilities:

• Work with senior leaders to create the annual development plan for attendance within the school, ensuring that the strategy in place is sufficiently sophisticated to deliver rapid improvements in attendance.
• Work with the relevant staff to plan a half termly school incentive programme for attendance, ensuring that incentives are low cost, high impact, relevant to pupils and effectively promoted across the school.
• Coordinate the daily actions of attendance staff, focusing priority on groups of pupils with the highest needs (safeguarding).
• Quality assure the attendance actions carried out daily, ensuring that all absent pupils have had some form of attendance intervention and that all colleagues within the school are robustly supporting and delivering on the Schools attendance strategy.
• Support, oversee and track the legal process for all parents who are not meeting their legal obligation to send their child to school every day
• In conjunction with relevant staff monitor carefully the attendance of pupils at off-site provisions and act to improve attendance where necessary.
• Write regular, positive news stories for the various social media platforms across the school, around attendance success and community engagement.
• Oversee processes at transition.
• Ensure that all aspects of the school website related to attendance are kept regularly updated.

Attendance Officer

Often larger schools or clusters of schools will appoint an Attendance Officer in addition to an Attendance Lead. The Attendance Officer is responsible for the day-to-day operation of the school's attendance procedure including addressing punctuality, first day calling and correspondence with parents and carers. Download a model Attendance Officer job description (Word doc) [18KB].

Reviewing current practice

It is recommended that the attendance practice checklist (Word doc) [54KB] is used to review current roles and define responsibilities for all staff.

Barriers to attendance: safeguarding and school attendance, early intervention and support

In this section we explore the issues that prevent parents and pupils engaging with education. Looking at the most common reasons for non-attendance and signposting to organisations who can provide additional support.

The barriers to school attendance are complex with poor attendance often linked to the emotional wellbeing and health of a pupil, challenging family circumstances or safeguarding concerns. Distinguishing what the barrier is in each case can be very difficult but it is not until you have identified the reason for a pupil or young person not attending school that you can start to address how to overcome it.

We must remember always that there is a very clear link between safeguarding and attendance. Learning through serious case reviews tells us that a common theme is that the voice of the pupil, whilst one of the most important voices we should be listening to, is often not heard. Providing pupils with the time and space to talk to a trusted adult and for us to take the time to listen is imperative whether there are concerns about a pupil's safety, wellbeing and/or school attendance. You can record what the child or young person wants, by using Voice of the Child documents.

Medical absences

The most common barrier to regular school attendance that we hear is parents reporting pupils to be unwell and this is supported by the DfE national statistics that report that 54.7% of all absence is attributed to illness. The most common form of this will be reported minor illnesses such as coughs, colds, high temperature, tummy ache and even tiredness. Where these are the reasons given, it is necessary to educate parents at an early stage that pupils with these types of minor illnesses are often OK once they are in school. School can seek further advice from Public Health England through the guidance on infection control in schools (opens new window). Schools should use these resources to improve knowledge and awareness around communicable diseases for parents and key staff and can incorporate learning from Public Health England into their school attendance policies.

Where this reassurance does not see an improvement then a referral to the Healthy Child Programme School Nursing Team (opens new window) would be appropriate for support on the management of minor illnesses and for a general health check to be completed.

Managing absences for medical reasons

All children must have equal access to appropriate education for their needs. Regular attendance is vital to ensure that all children achieve the outcomes to:

• Be healthy
• Stay safe
• Enjoy and achieve
• Make a positive contribution
• Achieve economic well-being

Following the findings of the Norfolk Safeguarding Children Board Serious Case Review: Case P in 2016 a recommendation was made for the NSCP to commission the development of a protocol and associated guidance for best practice in managing pupil absence from school reported by parents to be for health-related reasons.

Case P is a complex case, but the existence of medical evidence appears to have been a key driver influencing the decision not to proceed with more formal legal action to address the pupil's chronic poor school attendance. The review identified that a considered discussion about the parentally-asserted versus professionally-provided medical evidence to support school absence would have clarified that there was a need to better understand the way in which the pupil's family operated and the needs of the pupil.

The aim of the protocol is to provide advice in respect of the management of pupil absence from school. The protocol aims to clarify information sharing arrangements between GPs and schools in Norfolk to promote health and well-being of school children in relation to the management of sickness absence and to reduce unnecessary attendances at GP surgeries and inappropriate requests for medical information.

Nationally, illness is the most common reason provided for pupil absence. Most minor illnesses are self-limiting and do not require contact with a general practitioner or a medical certificate. The GP's role is to provide advice and treatment for childhood illnesses, when needed, to facilitate an early return to school. Medical certification for short term illness is not appropriate and should not be requested as standard school policy.

Department for Education Advice regarding school attendance states that:

Schools should advise parents to notify them on the first day the child is unable to attend due to illness. Schools should authorise absences due to illness unless they have genuine cause for concern about the veracity of an illness. If the authenticity of illness is in doubt, schools can request parents to provide medical evidence to support illness. Schools can record the absence as unauthorised if not satisfied of the authenticity of the illness but should advise parents of their intention. Schools are advised not to request medical evidence unnecessarily. Medical evidence can take the form of prescriptions, appointment cards, etc. rather than doctors' notes.

When considering medical evidence provided in the form of appointment cards and prescriptions, schools should review the evidence available to consider whether the evidence specifically confirms or makes comment upon a diagnosed condition that would explain the level of absence a child is presenting with. School staff should also consider whether pupil absence is indicative of wider concerns and the implications for the child's health, development and well-being, thinking beyond the medical issues presented by parents or carers.

Where a child has an emerging pattern of non-attendance, schools should discuss the reasons for absence with the child's parent/carer. Where the reasons for such absence are unclear and where continuing to authorise absence without clear evidence may be unhelpful; Attendance Support Panels are recommended as an appropriate early intervention strategy. At this stage it is appropriate to seek consent from parents to obtain further advice and make a referral to the School Nursing Service (opens new window) in order to develop a plan to address the child's reported medical needs.

Authorised absence means that the school has either given approval in advance for a pupil of compulsory school age to be away or has accepted an explanation offered afterwards as justification for absence. In law, the decision whether to authorise absence rests with the Headteacher of a school or a person designated with this responsibility by the Headteacher. In cases where attendance does not improve and no clear medical evidence is available to support a child's absences from school and parents fail to engage with an Attendance Support Panel and/or fail to give consent for a referral to the School Nursing Service, schools are advised to carefully consider whether to authorise further absences and to instigate the 'fast-track' process (Education Fast-track to attendance process).

In cases where a parent or carer continues to cite medical reasons for absence, schools should ask a person with parental responsibility (or the young person if over16) to sign a consent form giving the school permission to liaise with their GP. This request may be made either before or as part of a fast-track to attendance process but a referral to the School Nursing Service should have been made or offered before this action is taken. When a formal request is made, GPs can provide factual information to schools, with the parents' informed consent.

View the joint protocol between Health Services & Schools in respect of the management of pupil absence from school when medical reasons are cited (opens new window).

Families who need extra support

There may be families for whom your strategies to improve attendance do not appear to work. If the family already has an allocated Social Worker or Family Support Worker involved, you must bring issues of poor attendance to their attention, so it can be further discussed with the family in the Family Support Meetings/CIN/Sec 47 meetings and action agreed about what to do. For other families, where children's attendance is poor and not improving despite your efforts to engage the family, you can make referrals with parents' permission to outside agencies e.g. Early Help Family Focus Team. If you need further advice, staff in your local Early Help Family Focus Team can help. They can give you information and guidance on where to get support. Read more about early help on the Norfolk County Council website.

Other organisations and agencies:

• Community Connectors (South Norfolk) (opens new window)
• Early Childhood and Family Service (ECFS) (if family have a child under 5)
• Leeway Domestic Abuse Support (opens new window)
• The Benjamin Foundation (opens new window)
• Relate Norfolk and Suffolk (opens new window) (counselling)
• Norfolk SENDIASS (opens new window)
• Kids SENDIASS Services (opens new window) - Special needs advice for kids
• Nelson's Journey (opens new window) (bereavement)
• Starfish LD CAMHS and Starfish Plus (opens new window) (Learning disabilities support aged 5-18)
• ASD Helping Hands (opens new window)
• Matthew Project (opens new window) (drug and alcohol misuse)
• Chat Health (opens new window)
• Children & Young People's Health Services Norfolk (opens new window)
• Young Minds (opens new window)
• CAMHS - Norfolk (opens new window)
• GP service (opens new window)
• Gypsy Roma Traveller Services
• Client Hardship Scheme
• Norfolk Community Directory (opens new window)
• Childrens Service's Partner and Community Focus (PCF) Service (opens new window)

Poor attendance is often an indicator that there are underlying issues going on within the child's life. This could be bereavement, family ill health or parenting ability. Very poor and continued poor attendance is an indicator of neglect. Schools need to be aware of the relationship between poor school attendance and safeguarding. It is recommended that information about persistently absent pupils is discussed and shared with Designated Safeguarding Leads to ensure that possible links between a child's school attendance and any safeguarding issues are identified.

We have detailed only a few barriers that we know are given by parents for irregular attendance at school, but we know there are many more and each case should be considered individually when making a decision about interventions and appropriate support.