Dealing with Routine Absence

Trust Attendance Policy

Please be mindful that the Trust attendance policy has been updated to ensure that every academy fully meets its new duties under the revised DfE Attendance Guidance(September 2022) .  As part of this you will be required to outline in a contextual appendix the approach that you take to managing routine absence and communicating with parents.  Therefore please also ensure that you are familiar with the DfE Attendance Guidance.

Daily Routines 

• All academies should ensure that parents and pupils are greeted in some way as they come onto the school premises.

• Teachers need to be clear about how to take the register and when they must be completed by.

• Parents and staff should all be clear about where to go if their child is late into school so that they are registered present (use newsletters, parental leaflets and the website to share this information).  Once registers are completed attendance staff need to check for any pupil absence and ensure that the reason for absence is accounted for.

• Where absence is unexplained or there is otherwise a concern, attendance staff should make prompt contact with the parent/guardian - this may be by text, phone call or home visit as appropriate to the individual's circumstances.

• There must be clear procedures in place for dealing with a child who is not present in school and for whom there are particular safeguarding concerns.

Monitoring Poor Attendance and Actions

In some circumstances there will be pupil absence which is not adequately accounted for.  In these cases (in addition to any safeguarding procedures which must be in place) there should be a clear escalation of actions to deal with continuing non-attendance.  Even where there is a good reason for non-attendance, further action should be taken to support the continuing education of the child (see this page for further advice on this).  Academies should be wary of having actions that are insufficient or do not escalate quickly enough to prevent the pupil becoming a persistent absentee.  The actions may include:

• a letter to warn parents that their child's attendance is not high enough (NOTE:  letters along rarely have the desired effect)

• a parental meeting to discuss poor attendance with a parent contract to improve attendance

• a home visit to discuss poor attendance

• issue of a fixed penalty notice (must be done via local authority and each local authority will have their own procedures and criteria for this)

• application for an attendance order

Actions needs to be seen to be fair and consistent whilst also allowing for individual circumstances.  Parents always need to be told the consequences of non-compliance.  The order and timing of actions within each academy can be considered in relation to the academy's strategic plan for attendance and it may be helpful to script/write these in advance to ensure that key messages are delivered consistently and in a manner that is most productive (see this page for further info)    You may find this blog on crafting attendance letters and scripting attendance meetings useful for reference and it also contains several downloads which you could adapt for use in your own academy.  There is also a useful document from The Cabot Learning Federation in the folder at the bottom of the page, giving top tips for attendance communications.

At Thomas Hinderwell Primary Academy the attendance lead provides a regular weekly update to the principal and meets with her weekly to discuss attendance actions.  This is best practice and is to be encouraged.  See bottom of page for an example weekly report from THPA which can be used as a template.

The Scourge of Term-Time Holidays

Term-time holidays continue to be a bugbear for everyone.  We have consulted some travel agents on the best advice to give to parents regarding booking of holidays to minimise pricing.  The no 1 piece of advice is to seek holidays with free child places as these are always the best value.  The no 2 piece of advice is to book as early as you can.  Rather than simply notifying parents of fines for term-time holidays, it may be more supportive to emphasise these pieces of advice.

Pastoral Support

We are all aware that often those pupils who have the worst attendance also have a number of other issues in their lives.  Therefore we can never look at attendance in isolation but always need to consider this from a wholistic safeguarding perspective.  This video gives the overview on 'adverse childhood experiences' (ACEs) and how they can affect a child from a young age into adulthood and the next generation, but you will probably need to view it on a non-DRET computer:  https://youtu.be/YiMjTzCnbNQ  

Sharing our Resources

At the bottom of this page you can access routine letters and other resources that have kindly been shared by our academies for your use and adaptation.  Thanks to everyone that has shared and please keep them coming!