According to the latest National Statistics release from the Department for Education (DfE), severe absence rates–defined as missing 50% or more possible sessions–have increased across all school types from 2021/22 to 2022/23. And while persistent absence rates have decreased, defined as missing 10% or more sessions, they are still up from pre-pandemic levels.
To address student absenteeism, the DfE has released statutory guidance for maintained schools, academies, independent schools and local authorities, Working together to improve school attendance, coming into force 19 August 2024.
This blog article breaks down some of the key updates to the DfE attendance guidance 2024 and how technology can help you adhere to the updated UK school attendance policies.
The Importance of School Attendance
Attendance is an essential foundation to positive outcomes for all pupils including their safeguarding and welfare, therefore monitoring attendance is a key responsibility for all staff working with children. Persistent absence and children missing education are often vital warning signs to a range of safeguarding issues including neglect, sexual abuse and criminal exploitation.
Good attendance begins with school being somewhere pupils want to be. The foundation of securing good attendance is providing a calm, orderly, safe and supportive environment where all pupils are keen and ready to learn. For the most vulnerable pupils, regular attendance is also an important protective factor and the best opportunity for needs to be identified and support provided.
According to the guidance, all partners should work together to:
- Expect: Aspire to high standards of attendance from all pupils and parents and build a culture where all can, and want to, be in school and ready to learn by prioritising attendance improvement across the school.
- Monitor: Rigorously use attendance data to identify patterns of poor attendance (at individual and cohort level) as soon as possible so all parties can work together to resolve them before they become entrenched.
- Listen and understand: When a pattern is spotted, discuss with pupils and parents to listen to and understand barriers to attendance and agree how all partners can work together to resolve them.
- Facilitate support: Remove barriers in school and help pupils and parents to access the support they need to overcome the barriers outside of school. This might include an early help or whole family plan where absence is a symptom of wider safeguarding issues.
- Formalise support: Where absence persists and voluntary support is not working or not being engaged with, partners should work together to explain the consequences clearly and ensure support is also in place to enable families to respond.
- Enforce: Where all other avenues have been exhausted and support is not working or not being engaged with, enforce attendance through statutory intervention.
Expectations of Schools
The new guidance sets out the various expectations of schools when it comes to improving attendance, including the expectation to have a clear, written school attendance policy that all leaders, staff, pupils and parents understand.
Some of the areas to detail in your school attendance policy include:
- What your day-to-day processes for managing attendance are, for example first day calling and processes to follow up on unexplained absence.
- How your school is promoting and incentivising good attendance.
- Your strategy for using data to target attendance improvement efforts to the pupils or pupil cohorts who need it most.
- Your approach 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.
School leaders need to regularly analyse attendance and absence data to identify pupils or cohorts that require support and put effective strategies in place. This includes monitoring and analysing attendance patterns and trends in order to deliver intervention and support in a targeted way to pupils and families. This should not just focus on persistent and severe absence but look at all severities of absence to identify pupils who can be supported earlier before patterns become entrenched.
A digital platform like CPOMS StudentSafe helps schools uphold and enhance their attendance policy. With completely customisable categories, the software lessens the burden on staff managing administrative tasks, allowing schools to gain efficiency and eliminate data silos. As attendance and other safeguarding information is entered, a student’s chronology is automatically constructed so the appropriate staff can more readily connect the dots on a situation and address concerns before they become significant problems.
Information Sharing and Collaboration: A Joined-Up Approach
The local authority, statutory safeguarding partners and other local partners all have a crucial role in supporting pupils. Schools and local authorities are expected to look for patterns of both persistent and severe absence as part of their regular data monitoring and identify pupils who need targeted attendance support as quickly as possible. To achieve this, they must be able to work jointly and share data on individual cases where it is of benefit to the pupil. This type of information sharing needs to be automatic and not require additional manual data collection/returns.
With CPOMS Engage, schools and local authorities can meet this requirement by creating a seamless, secure transfer of pupil information using a CPOMS Share Contract. These Share Contracts are completely configurable, including the frequency, type of data to be shared and who should have access to the information for each student. There is no need to reformat files, send secure emails or make countless phone calls–the data is shared securely, reducing administrative duties and enhancing safeguarding and wellbeing interventions.
Putting Your Attendance Policies into Action
An effective attendance policy is fundamental to ensuring every child receives the education they deserve. By adhering to the new DfE guidance and adopting the strategies outlined above, schools can foster an environment where attendance is valued and promoted.
Executing your student attendance and safeguarding policies becomes more manageable with the assistance of CPOMS StudentSafe. From low-level concerns to an array of forms, documents, interventions, notes, interviews and more, StudentSafe provides a comprehensive student chronology. With everything on one secure platform, staff can collaborate more effectively on interventions, tasks, follow-ups and report sharing while streamlining administrative efforts.
Interested in learning more? Contact us today to see how CPOMS safeguarding software can help your setting meet and exceed the new attendance guidance 2024 and address student absenteeism.
