WELCOME TO THE AUTUMN TERM 2023

This site is has now been reviewed and refreshed for the 2023/24 academic year, so everything you find should be up-to-date and relevant.  Please let Wendy know if you find any errors or broken links.

What's new:

• New report published by the Children's Commissioner looking at the link between attendance and GCSE grades.

• Link to some useful leaflet handouts for families about keeping their children healthy (US produced)

• New document for attendance governors with suggested questions to ask in folder at bottom of this page

• New pamphlet on EBSA published from the Anna Freud Team

• DfE Attendance toolkit and letter from CMO to school leaders about mild illness and school attendance.

• Children's Commissioner blogs on attendance here and here.

• Information on the new Bromcom training website.

Introduction for Autumn Term

If you are new to the Trust or to the attendance role and are here to find out what you need to know about attendance, then please scroll straight down to 'What you need to know if you are new to the Trust'.  Otherwise, please read on . . . . . 

These are the things that we would recommend you consider going into the autumn term:

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• Ensure that those pupils and their families are new to the school are supported to develop really good attendance habits during their first two weeks in the academy.  Research shows that this early period is crucial in setting good patterns of attendance throughout the rest of their school years.

• Start to work early on with those families whose children are at high risk of becoming persistently absent.  Early action gives them a much better chance of never reaching that threshold.  Be pro-active, which means personal contact with families, letters and texts have minimal effect, so a system that involves sending several letters before personal contact is unlikely to be successful.

• Schools that have the best attendance ensure that ALL of their staff are involved in discussion attendance with their pupils.  Work to ensure that the culture within your academy is not one where attendance is just the job of the officer.

What you need to know if you are new to the Trust . . . . . 

. . . . . and/or new to role, here's what you need to know about attendance.  Simply click on the page links to take you to the relevant pages.  However, don't be afraid to browse the entire site, you can never know too much about attendance!

If you are a classroom teacher or may be taking a register/in charge of a class regularly, then please go straight to this page.

If you are a strategic leader (ie usually a member of SLT) then please make yourself familiar with everything on this site and focus particularly on the strategic attendance planning section.

If you are not either of the above then please read the general introduction page.

Please remember to . . . . .

• ensure that you have updated your attendance lead details on this list if there have been any changes since last term.

• ensure that you have completed the revised attendance policy contextual appendix and published it on your academy website.

• make contact with the primary or secondary attendance leads if you have any queries or questions or just need some support: Wendy Baxter (primary) wbaxter@dret.co.uk or Carol Kerry (secondary) ckerry@dret.co.uk

• make contact with our primary behaviour and exclusion lead if you have any queries or questions in relation to exclusion or alternative provision: Kimberley Lawton klawton1@dret.co.uk

Links and documents that may be useful:

In the folder below you can find any documents that are mentioned in the update section above plus a folder containing all of the regular attendance updates sent out by email and a spreadsheet showing the latest attendance figures across all of our primaries.

Quick Access Resources

Simply click on the green bar to go straight to the website.  You can find further links to resources throughout this site.