This Attendance Strategy has been developed to ensure a whole system response to working with children and young people in Hammersmith and Fulham whereby all practitioners understand their roles and responsibilities in ensuring the importance of partnership working to secure good attendance for our children and young people through:
- All practitioners across the system understand their respective responsibilities for school attendance, they know who to contact for support and are confident to address concerns about school attendance.
- All practitioners working with children and young people in the borough take collective responsibility for improving school attendance and there is consistent response to planning and working to remove barriers to attendance.
- Systems are developed to identify patterns and trends in attendance within the borough enabling better oversight and monitoring.
- All stakeholders including parents and carers are clear about what support is on offer to improve attendance as well as their responsibilities.
- Responses to concerns about pupil absence at an individual level are coordinated across educational settings, health and local authority teams.
As a consequence:
- Overall attendance in the borough improves and levels of persistent absence reduces.
- All services working with children and young people work in a coordinated way and take collective responsibility to address barriers to attendance.
- Barriers to working with families, children and young people are reduced to ensure timely access to early help support where attendance is a concern.
- Communication between education settings and services are timely and there is a shared understanding in the borough on the approaches to tackling attendance.
- Parents and carers understand the contribution they can make to their child's wellbeing, achievement and good attendance and know where to go to access help and support.
- Clear systems, monitoring and oversight allow early identification of poor attendance at all levels ensuring children and young people access the right support, at the right time.