New regulations for schools in next stage of attendance drive
Source: Department for Education published on this website Thursday 29 February 2024 by Jill Powell
Every state school in England will now share their daily attendance registers across the education sector - including with the department for education, councils, and trusts in the next stage of the government’s drive to reduce pupil absence in school.
The sharing of daily school registers will form a new world-leading attendance data set that will help schools spot and support children displaying worrying trends of persistent absence or those in danger of becoming missing in education.
Schools, trusts and councils will be able to access this data via an interactive secure data dashboard maintained by the department for education. This will allow them easy use of the data to not only spot pupils in need of support but also to understand how their attendance position compares locally and nationally so they can look at where they might need to drive improvements.
These reforms are the next phase in the government’s plan to improve attendance following the pandemic which has seen a worldwide rise in absence and persistent absence driven by broken habits of attendance, and new and exacerbated barriers like mental ill health.
The government’s plan to improve attendance has included expanding the attendance hubs programme to 32 hubs across the country, which share best practice to schools supporting more than one million pupils, plus piloting attendance mentors, who work directly with pupils to tackle their barriers to attendance alongside a national awareness campaign aimed at helping parents. Our plan is already working, with 380,000 fewer pupils persistently off school over the course of last year.
Parent fines for unauthorised absences will also be brought under a national framework to help tackle inconsistencies in their use. A fine to parents must be considered if a child misses 5 days of school for unauthorised absence. Alongside this, costs for fines will go up from £60 to £80 if paid within 21 days and from £120 to £160 if paid in 28 days which will ensure all parents are aware of when they might face a fine to ensure all councils are issuing fines appropriately.
Today the Department for Education has also announced Rob Tarn, CEO of Northern Education Trust and the founder of England’s first attendance hub, as the new national attendance ambassador. Rob will work with schools and school leaders to champion attendance, share effective practice, and support the ongoing development of the attendance hubs programme nationally.
Key guidance setting out how schools and local authorities must take a ‘support-first’ approach to help pupils and their families to tackle barriers to attendance will be made statutory from August 2024. The working together to improve school attendance guidance sets expectations including regular meetings between schools and local authorities to agree plans for the most at-risk absent children.
It particularly emphasises the importance of support for pupils with SEND and mental ill health who often need more individual consideration due to wider barriers. It asks schools, local authorities and wider services to work together to support these pupils, encouraging early intervention and close working with families to address their individual needs.
