The Attendance Specialist Team support schools in fulfilling their responsibilities as outlined by the Department for Education's Working Together to Improve School Attendance Guidance. This includes supporting schools:
- understand and practise a 'support first' approach
- with advice and guidance about improving school attendance
- improve individual attendance
- that are seeking advice about attendance policies
Attendance data
It is now statutory for all schools to share their school and pupil-level daily data with the Department for Education.
DfE View Your Education Data (VYED):
- DfE Guidance for sharing daily pupil attendance data
- DfE Live Attendance Data Dashboard - pupil attendance in schools
DfE Guide to Absence Statistics and Statistical releases (data obtained via Census):
- DfE Absence Statistics Guidance and Statistical Releases
- DfE National Absence Rates on the GOV.UK website
Improving attendance in Essex
The Attendance Specialist Team will:
- aim to build and sustain strong, collaborative relationships with schools and other professionals
- have a responsibility to ensure school attendance is a priority
- provide advice, guidance, and training to improve school attendance
- use data to identify areas for improvement
- share good practices via different platforms
- produce and circulate half-termly 'Maximising School Attendance Bulletins'
- conduct termly attendance Targeting Support Meetings (TSMs)
- hold, review, and develop a range of resources for schools and settings to support improved school attendance
Where possible we will attend the following:
- Essex Primary Heads Association (EPHA) termly meetings
- District-based Behaviour and Attendance Partnership (BAP) half-termly meetings
- Association of Secondary Headteachers in Essex (ASHE) meetings
- Partnership meetings
- Early Help Drop-Ins (weekly, one per quadrant) - timetable can be found on the Essex County Council website
Schools and professionals
Schools and professionals should:
- sign-up to the Education Weekly Newsletter
- read the half-termly Essex Schools ‘Maximising School Attendance Bulletin’
- attend Targeting Support Meetings where appropriate
- attend Early Help Drop Ins
- develop systems and processes to monitor attendance effectively such as the Template School Attendance Tracker (Exel, 92KB).