1. Workforce development – Collectively, everyone who works with children, young people and their families has a role to play in supporting good attendance. These roles should complement each other and work together to support raising attendance. In order to achieve this, we will seek to develop the skills of the workforce ensuring they have the knowledge, understanding and skills to meet the needs of our young people and respond effectively to concerns about school attendance.
How we will do it
- Develop an attendance self-assessment for schools to evaluate and rag-rate the whole school approach to managing school attendance.
- Enhance the existing offer of training, support and guidance to schools based on consultation, learning from audit and needs analysis. This will include training for governors and trustees.
- Create a training offer including for existing staff in other services (e.g. INSPIRE, SEND teams, Social Care) to ensure all partners understand their role in supporting good school attendance and understand where to access further advice and support.
- Via the H&F centralised Learning and Development training offer, ensure opportunities to understand the features and importance of good school attendance is embedded within the induction process for staff working with children and families in H&F.
- Provide opportunities for practitioners to problem solve, reflect on practice, coach others with regards to attendance.
- Via the H&F Attendance Alliance, identify, collate and share good practice highlighting the impact of those interventions for children and their families as well as on school standards.
2. Effective intervention and consistent practice – Across Education, Health, Social Care, schools and other key partners, we will review the current defined pathways in place to tackle attendance within the borough ensuring that at each level there is a clear and consistent set of expectations and agreed approach.
How we will do it
We will review and revise current practice models and guidance so that:
- Approaches to tackling attendance are consistent across all stakeholders.
- The link between school attendance and safeguarding is clearly understood by all stakeholders.
- Trauma informed approaches are embedded in practice.
- Through clear signposting schools, children and their families have access to appropriate support including making full use of Voluntary Community Sector partners.
- There is an agreed multi-agency response for the most vulnerable learners where interventions have not supported them to access a full-time education Incorporate regular dip-sampling of attendance cases to highlight good practice, quality assure processes and understand areas for improvement.
3. Data and systems - Through access to data, the LA will have a clear understanding of the current local picture and how this compares to national trends, in particular for vulnerable cohorts such as SEND, children looked after, pupils with a social worker and pupils attending commissioned Alternative Provision. As a result, the system will be responsive to emerging need and LA Teams will respond to the data strategically, in a timely manner.
How we will do it
- Support schools to understand and own their data, analyse it accurately, identify trends and compare it with the national picture, have a clear picture of the reasons for absence, understand their attendance profile, and have in place actions for improvement via support from the School Attendance Officers.
- Develop a clear system for monitoring all relevant data which outlines respective teams' roles and responsibility and frequency of the activity.
- Share data and emerging patterns and trends routinely via the Attendance Alliance and collectively through networks and in training.