Strategic Reporting

Is Attendance a Priority?

The amount of attention given to attendance will depend on how much of an issue it is within your academy.  If it is well below national average* and is not rapidly improving, if Ofsted have previously commented negatively about it or if there are any vulnerable groups whose attendance is well below national average* then it should feature more prominently and will most probably also be a target within your Academy Improvement Plan.

If your attendance is not a particular issue at your academy and historically has been strong, then you will no doubt give less prominence to its discussion.  However be wary of being complacent as you may get caught out!  In this case ensure that you are thoroughly and systematically identifying trends in attendance so that you can spot early any emerging issues.  Sometimes an overall good attendance rate may mask an issue in one particular area.

*It's a little difficult to be clear about what exactly is considered to be national average at the present time.  This is due to two factors; firstly the longer-term effects of the Covid-19 pandemic and a recognition that, although improved on the previous years, attendance has not yet returned to its pre-pandemic rate and secondly; the DfE now has two measures of 'national, with a new fortnightly 'proxy' of national that is based on a review of live attendance data of most, but not all, schools and the 'old' measure which is based on a 100% census but is always published historically for the previous academic year.

Presenting the Routine Data

The difficulty with routinely examining attendance data is that it can be quite difficult to interpret accurately.  This is a particular issue at the present time when national attendance for the past three years has been heavily affected by the COVID-19 pandemic and its aftermath (last winter it was Scarlet Fever) and this has hit different geographical areas at different times such that a national average does not reflect the local position in many cases.  For two of the last three academic years we also have the added factor that not all absence has been included within the statutory figures (remember the additional X codes in relation to COVID-19 which are excluded from the statutory figures).  From this academic year, the longer-term effects of COVID-19 should be minimised (fingers crossed), so that we may be able to use the 2019 national attendance data as a rough proxy for what attendance should be in a 'normal' year.  For these reasons, the most useful figure to concentrate on may be unauthorised absence, as this is where the academy can have the most influence in improving attendance.

Whilst it seems straightforward (in a 'normal' year) to compare it to the national average, even this can be misleading.  At the start of the academic year the national data for the previous academic year is not yet available for comparison.  Should your attendance rate be compared against the national primary attendance rate or against an IDACI quintile adjusted rate?  Do you take into account the time of the year that you are reporting the data in (there are clear historical trends in attendance data across an academic year)?  How do you report PA data - is it better to report it as a percentage (but this is less meaningful the earlier in the year it is reported) or as no of pupils who are within a certain amount of days of absence (it generally takes 19 days of absence across a year to become a PA)?  Given all of these subtleties, do you try and explain all of this to SLT/governors or do you avoid the complications and go with one set of figures?

Of course there can be no right and wrong answers to all of the above, it will depend on the individual circumstances of the academy.  What is important though is that you do not overwhelm SLT/governors with a volume of data that allows the key issues to become hidden within it.  As a general rule 'less is more' and the important thing is to highlight where there are issues and what you are intending to do/have done about them.

Presenting the Strategic Review Data

The best way to conduct strategic reviews of attendance data is to do this in a systematic fashion.  What works well (and is considered good practice by Ofsted) is to set a calendar for reviews so that it can be seen at a glance what you are reviewing when and also so that nothing gets missed out.  The attendance lead for the academy can then present the findings from each strategic review of attendance data at an SLT meeting and next steps/decisions can be agreed.  The principal can then include a summary of these within their ASC report so that governors are kept informed.

The Role of Governors

We recommend that you appoint a governor to take a special interest in attendance.  The designated safeguarding governor will also review some aspects of attendance, particularly in relation to children missing in education.  Governors need to satisfy themselves that attendance is being managed efficiently and following all safeguarding procedures.  They need to check that the attendance of the academy and its vulnerable groups are satisfactory for the context and to question why attendance may appear lower or higher for any particular group.  What good practice can be learned from 'bright spots' and what actions are to be taken to improve attendance 'black spots'.  Be wary of falling into the trap of saying 'its always been like this here' or 'its the parents, we can't do anything about it'.

The following are links to our Trust GovernorHub website that gives some further information for attendance governors that may be helpful:

The role of the attendance governor within DRET

Improving school attendance: your role from the guidance

How to evaluate your school's absence and attendance figures