Introduction
Welcome back after a beautiful May half term. We have a number of key features to share with you in this edition of the attendance newsletter including:
- School attendance practice checklist – How ready are you?
- Increasing school attendance with parent messages guide
- Persistent absence for unauthorised other reasons: Who is at risk?
- Bullying, prejudice and racism incidents (BPRI) reporting and resource
- Devon Public Health Nursing information
- Working Together to Improve School Attendance - Free Online seminar
A school attendance practice checklist has been devised to support Headteachers, Attendance Leads and Governing Boards to review attendance practices in line with the key features identified in Working together to improve school attendance (publishing.service.gov.uk)
It is recommended that a review of your current practice is undertaken during the summer term to ensure you are on track to being compliant with statutory guidance from September 2023.
As well as reviewing your own practice at school level to identify areas for improvement, you will be able to discuss with and/or seek advice from your EWO.
Increasing attendance with parent messages
Parents play a critical role in their children’s school attendance. However, research shows that parents tend to underestimate the total number of days their child has been absent by around 6 days across the year.
Bristol City Council in 2020 in partnership with the Behavioural Insights Team (BIT) has developed a useful guide to help teachers and school leaders improve attendance among persistently absent students by sending evidence-based messages to parents.
Code S: Study leave
Study leave should not be granted by default once tuition of the exam syllabus is complete, it should be used sparingly and only granted to Year 11 pupils during public examinations. If schools do decide to grant study leave, provision must still be made available for those pupils who want to continue to come into school to revise.
As study leave is unsupervised it must be recorded as absence.
Schools continue to be responsible for the safeguarding and welfare of Year 11 pupils up to the last Friday in June (30 June 2023). So, whilst study leave can be granted schools should ensure that:
- Contact details for parents/carers are up to date.
- There must be a process through which pupils can raise any safeguarding concerns they may have whether at school, or at home.
Schools should also consider what additional arrangements are in place for vulnerable pupils beyond this date:
- Channels of communication to other agencies such as Social Workers remain open and effective.
- Contact with pupils should be regular.
- Risk for pupils to be collaboratively assessed with allocated workers
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Code H: Leave of absence for the purpose of a family holiday granted by the school
Parents should plan their holidays around school breaks and avoid seeking permission from schools to take their children out of school during term time unless it is absolutely unavoidable.
An application for leave of absence should (and from certain schools must) not be granted unless it is made in advance by a parent the pupil normally lives with, and the school is satisfied that there are exceptional circumstances based on the individual facts and circumstance of the case which justify the leave.
Where a leave of absence is granted, the school will determine the number of days a pupil can be absent from school. A leave of absence is granted entirely at the headteacher’s discretion.
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Code G: Holiday not granted by the school or in excess of the period determined by the school
Where the school has not granted a leave of absence for the purpose of a holiday, but the parents still take the child out of school, or the child is kept away longer that the period of leave granted.
A school cannot grant a leave of absence retrospectively. If the parent did not apply in advance, leave of absence should not (and from certain types of school cannot) be granted.
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To help with consistency when considering whether a request for absence could be deemed as exceptional circumstances, the list below can be used:
- Is this a one-off, unavoidable event that is unlikely to happen again in the child’s time at their current school?
- Are the date(s) requested within the control/choice of the parent/carer?
- Are the dates requested reasonable for the exceptional circumstance (e.g., a funeral of a parent in another part of the country). If not, the school could consider authorising some of the absence
- Where a request is linked to an ‘employer setting dates’ for leave, is there written evidence from the employer/line manager that this is the case for a full 12 month leave period?
- Have families given school sufficient time to consider any request? (S2 form states 3 weeks minimum)
- If this is not the case, do the circumstances warrant this request being made?
- Is there a medical/social/emotional reason that is evidenced or known by the school or wider agencies in support of this request at this time for the child or sibling?
- Where possible, schools could work in a joined-up approach for decision making with neighbouring schools/school where siblings attend
Schools are responsible for following the Local Authority procedures and this must be transparent in the schools attendance policy. The Local Authority must be informed when an unauthorised holiday is taken of 10 sessions (5 days) or more.
Children have told us that bullying, prejudice, and racism incidents occur in every school. These incidents impact a child's attendance and research shows those who experience bullying on average receive two grades lower in their GCSEs.
Schools should be reporting these BPR incidents to the local authority. Your school can improve its awareness by watching the short BPRI video and understanding its role to manage and eliminate incidents. Our BPRI resource contains a wealth of information on the different forms of bullying, prejudice, and racism
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The Public Health Nursing Service provides health visiting and school nursing services across Devon. We deliver universal child and family health services, provide ongoing additional services for vulnerable children and families, and work to safeguard and protect children.
Did you know…..
Public Health Nursing also offer a confidential texting service for parents and carers, and young people.
Parents and carers: Text a health visitor on 07520 631 721 to get confidential information and advice.
Young people: Contact a school nurse through our secure, confidential text messaging service, ChatHealth on 0752 063 1722.
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It is that time of year again, the summer census return date is due by 14 June 2023.
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The Department for Education (DfE) want to empower local authorities, schools and others to identify and support children missing education more effectively.
This is to ensure every child gets an education, wherever they live and whatever their background. In this call for evidence, the DfE are seeking views on:
- how children missing education are identified and supported
- the challenges in identifying and supporting children missing education
- how to address those challenges
Children missing education are children of compulsory school age who are not registered pupils at a school and are not receiving suitable education otherwise.
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This report may help with identifying individuals for early intervention.
The report is an in-depth study into the factors associated with persistent absence for unauthorised other reasons (PAUO) in pupils of secondary school age.
It describes the characteristics of PAUO pupils and examines individual risk factors linked to being PAUO. Analysis using logistic regression with a rich set of control variables is used to determine which risk factors may be associated with this absence when confounding factors affecting pupils are accounted for.
To effectively tackle the complex barriers to attendance, schools and local authorities need to be able to identify those at risk of being PAUO and target the interventions as early as possible.
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Wednesday, 28 June 2023 from 16.00 to 17.15 via Zoom
Featuring: Adam Luke, Team Leader – School Attendance Policy and Strategy Team - Department for Education
Regular attendance at school is an essential prerequisite for pupils’ educational attainment, wellbeing, wider development, and future life chances. For the most vulnerable, being in school and having access to support can also be an additional protective factor.
In this free seminar, Adam will give an overview of the cross-government effort to tackle persistent and severe absence and re-engage pupils. He will also talk through the government’s new expectations of schools, local authorities and other partners and how agencies are working together to provide whole-family support in complex cases.
This event will be held online via Zoom from 16.00 to 17.15.
PLEASE NOTE that places are limited so please be sure you can attend before booking.
If you have watched the above report, you will understand the importance of sharing your data to ensure the barriers to attendance we are experiencing in our schools are understood at parliament level. Nationally, 75% of schools have signed up to share their data and we would like to encourage 100% of schools in Devon to sign up.
Getting daily attendance data will:
- give schools, local authorities and multi-academy trusts (MATs) access to more up-to-date pupil-level attendance data
- help you meet the new expectations set out in working together to improve school attendance
- not add to your school’s workload
Schools should use the reports to help improve attendance by identifying trends and those pupils who need support, and sharing attendance data with their board, governing body and local authority.
There will be no costs involved and it will enable you to share your attendance data with us.
Please note the data trial does not replace any data collection currently in place with the local authority. In addition, the data pack due to be released shortly by the local authority will supplement the information provided through this data trial, not replace it.
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This document summarises the attendance responsibilities for parents, schools, academy trusts, governing bodies, and local authorities which are outlined in the ‘Working Together to Improve School Attendance Guidance’ 2022.
This guidance summary is really helpful to assist colleagues in schools and settings with planning and sharing the importance of attendance related matters with staff and governing bodies. The guidance should be read alongside the statutory guidance documents on parental responsibility measures, children missing education, supporting pupils at school with medical conditions, suspensions and exclusions, alternative provision, and safeguarding.
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All Local Authorities have been asked to update and refresh their outcome plans to meet the new supporting families 10 headline themes.
Training dates available in May, June and July:
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Right for Children Part 1: Introduction to Early Help and Right for Children and What Makes a Good Assessment
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Right for Children Part 2: Plan and Review and What Makes a Good Team Around the Family (TAF) Meeting
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Safeguarding conference 29 June 2023
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