Attendance
An effective attendance strategy is a key factor in, not only securing your pupils safety and supporting their wellbeing, but it may also contribute to acquiring a sound judgement in the Behaviour and Attitudes aspect of an Ofsted inspection.
Your attendance policy should underpin your school’s approach and practice to improving the attendance and persistent absence of all pupils, particularly vulnerable or disadvantaged. The policy should incorporate all current legislation and guidance to ensure that you are compliant with statutory requirements. Anchored Schools can offer you explicit advice and quality assure this vital document.
Absence from school has the potential to significantly impact on a child or young person’s learning and may also have a detrimental effect on their mental health and wellbeing. Periods of absence, unexplained absence and changes in attendance patterns may be indicators of safeguarding concerns. It is imperative that all staff understand their role in securing good pupil attendance and the direct link to safeguarding. Anchored Schools can support you in developing your staff’s knowledge and understanding of their role and responsibility in this crucial area.
Attendance in Action
We have had the pleasure of working with a primary school in a deprived area of a large city in the north of England who had a range of local challenges that had significantly impacted on their attendance over a period. We worked closely with senior leaders, all teaching staff and support staff whose roles could influence attendance and relationships with families. The staff embraced the whole school approach and a creative and comprehensive initiative was launched to improve the attendance of all cohorts, but particularly the most vulnerable and persistent absentees. The staff’s energy was relentless; the initiative did not lose pace at any point during the year. We visited at points to support in the reviewing and monitoring of the strategy and were delighted to be able to celebrate the success as they were experiencing it.
The data speaks for itself – At a comparable point the year after starting the initiative persistent absenteeism had improved by 7.5%, Pupil Premium PA had improved by 20%. Whole school attendance had improved by 2.5%% attendance of disadvantaged children increased by 3.5%. All identified cohort’s attendance data sat above the national average.
The school took on all elements of the Anchored Schools Attendance Toolkit and we were able to work collaboratively with the school to create imaginative approaches which tackled their local challenges, ultimately adding power through personalisation.
Everyone - families, pupils, staff and supporting agencies played their part in making the huge improvements to pupil attendance and it was a pleasure working with all of them!
How we can help.
An Attendance Toolkit
This comprehensive resource includes the following elements to assist you in successfully improving attendance:
Staff training to raise awareness of all staff responsibilities around attendance
Attendance policy
Attendance assemblies (all key stages)
Tiered intervention strategy with supporting documentation
Methods and tools for the collection and collation of attendance data, which monitors trends and patterns across key cohorts and provides evidence of improvement against national and comparable data.
In addition to offering the complete toolkit, we can offer elements from the resource to support a specific area which may enhance your current work i.e. staff training
Leadership Development
Bespoke support for attendance leads in an area of school development that is recognised as a crucial component of safeguarding and an inclusive school culture; a culture in which staff know and care about pupils and intervene in an effective and timely fashion.
Attendance and Pastoral Team Support
We can offer you tailored coaching and training which will enrich the modelling and operational practice by key personnel within attendance and pastoral teams. Our support will be tailored to suit the unique circumstances and pupils of your school.
Inspection Ready
Advice and guidance on creating a robust evidence base for external and internal inspections. We can share our extensive experience of local authority and DfE inspections; guiding staff in the collation and presentation of impactful data and other evidence which shows the demonstrable improvement of pupil attendance.
Attendance Review
We have two types of review available - a Health Check Review, and an Extensive Review. See below for more details. The reviews offer a different level of scrutiny, however, both will support you in developing a comprehensive action plan to improve whole school attendance.
Attendance Reviews
Health Check Review - Recommended for settings who have already had an Extensive Review and wish to check progress, or are confident in the effectiveness of their attendance policies and procedures and require external verification.
A one day visit by a member of our team, resulting in a RAG-rated report. Verbal guidance and support will be offered on the day of the review by the Anchored School colleague.
Extensive Review - Recommended for schools where senior leaders wish to comprehensively audit their policies, systems and procedures for attendance and punctuality.
A one day review visit by a member of our team, followed by a comprehensive report. The report contains RAG-rated responses to the lines of inquiry, actions, and recommendations as well as an executive summary. The stakeholder voice will be explored during the review to triangulate evidence. Guidance and support will be offered on the day of the review by the Anchored Schools colleague. In addition, we will offer a verbal feedback session at the end of the day for senior leaders, governors, Trust members etc.