Attendance management checklist for schools

To help schools and trusts get to grips with the latest attendance regulations, we’ve produced this handy checklist of key considerations you can work through.

Policy

1. Do you have a clear school attendance policy which everyone understands and is compliant with the new guidance? (The guidance details what should be in the policy and the processes that should be followed).

2. Is your attendance policy MAT-wide? and if so, is it tailored to the needs of individual schools? (Taking account of your Local Authority’s Code).

Registers and Codes

3. Are your attendance registers accurate and are you following clear processes to follow-up on absence in accordance with your safeguarding duties?

4. Are you familiar with the new Attendance Codes and when you can remove from roll?

Communications with parents

5. Do you have template letters to follow up on attendance issues?

Data Analysis and Sharing

6. Do you have processes in place to extract and analyse data to ensure support is targeted?

7. Have you agreed with your Local Authority the frequency of attendance returns to be sent to them? (At least monthly).

Responsibilities

8. Is data provided to the governing board and are they aware of their responsibilities under the guidance?

9. Do you know who your point of contact in the Local Authority School Attendance Support Team is and have you agreed the frequency of/scheduled any meetings?

10. Have you appropriately resourced attendance support and improvement?

11. Have you scheduled training on attendance as part of the continued professional development offer for all staff and dedicated attendance training for any staff with a specified attendance function in their role?

12. Have you appointed the Senior Attendance Champion?

School Approach

13. Have you determined your school’s approach to complying with the guidance? The guidance states that as a minimum this should include all staff understanding:

• The importance of good attendance and that absence is almost always a symptom of wider circumstances.
• The law and requirements of schools including on the keeping of registers.
• The school/trusts’ strategies and procedures for tracking, following up and improving attendance.
• Processes for working with other partners to provide more intensive support to pupils who need it.

Accessing support and keeping up to date 

We’ve published a series of articles, hosted a webinar and prepared training and other support for schools since the DfE released their updated guidance ‘Working together to improve school attendance’ outlining the changes to attendance and registration requirements.

For your ease of reference you can access all of this information here:

• Understanding the changes to attendance requirements 
• Implementing the new attendance monitoring requirements 
• The latest penalties for school non-attendance
• School attendance and absence management training
• School attendance - getting to grips with the new regulations [free on-demand webinar]

All of our articles are published on our website and you can keep up to date with all of the support and advice we publish by signing-up for email updates or following us on LinkedIn or Twitter.