Guidance | Working together to improve School Attendance
Purpose
Working Together to Improve School Attendance is statutory
guidance for maintained schools, academies, independent schools and local
authorities in England. It sets out the roles, responsibilities, expectations,
and interventions required to secure and sustain good attendance. The most
recent update, published in August 2024, clarifies areas such as attendance
coding, data-sharing, and legal expectations. Importantly, these changes do not
represent a shift in overall policy but instead provide clearer guidance on the
correct processes to follow.
Key principles and rationale
The central principle of the guidance is that attendance is everyone’s
responsibility. Consistent attendance is strongly linked to attainment,
wellbeing, social development, and children’s future life chances. However,
barriers to regular attendance are often multi-dimensional, encompassing health
issues, special educational needs, mental health difficulties, family or home
circumstances, transport challenges, and disengagement from school. The
guidance promotes a “support first” approach, emphasising early intervention
and collaborative work with pupils and families to remove barriers. Sanctions
should not be the first step; instead, schools and partners are encouraged to
engage positively before considering enforcement.
Prevention and early intervention are highlighted as key. Schools must
monitor attendance data closely to identify patterns of absence at the earliest
stage. Action should be taken before absence becomes persistent, for example
through meetings with families, pastoral check-ins, or other forms of support.
Where absence is persistent or severe, a more intensive and coordinated
response is needed. This may involve structured casework, formal attendance
contracts, or engagement with external partners such as local authority
services or specialist support agencies.
Roles, accountability and collaboration
The guidance includes a summary table of responsibilities, which maps
out duties across schools, governing bodies or trusts, and local authorities.
Schools are required to maintain a clear attendance policy, communicate
expectations to families, assign a senior leader as attendance champion, ensure
accurate registration, and follow up daily absences without delay. Local
authorities, meanwhile, are responsible for providing support, coordinating
services, and enforcing legal interventions where required. Regular meetings
between schools and local authorities are expected to review pupils at risk of
persistent absence and to coordinate joint support.
Robust data, registers and attendance coding
Registers are legal documents and schools must treat them as such,
ensuring accuracy, appropriate removal of leavers, and timely follow-up of
absences. The August 2024 update includes changes to attendance codes and
clarifies how certain circumstances should be recorded. For example, remote
learning sessions, unless physically supervised in an approved setting, must
not be coded as present. Instead, they should be recorded using authorised
absence codes. Schools must ensure that all staff responsible for attendance
are fully trained in applying the updated codes.
Legal interventions
When voluntary support does not succeed or when families refuse to
engage, the guidance makes clear that legal routes remain available. These
include issuing an attendance contract, applying for an education supervision
order, or prosecuting parents who fail in their legal duty to secure
attendance. Penalty notices and fines can also be applied for unauthorised
absences, and new national frameworks and higher fine amounts are being
introduced. However, the guidance stresses that even during legal processes there
is still scope for engagement, and support should continue to be offered to
families to prevent further escalation.
Communication with families
Effective communication is recognised as a cornerstone of improving
attendance. The guidance is supported by a toolkit that provides
best-practice examples of letters, texts, emails, and phone call scripts for
use with parents and carers. Messages should be timely, personalised, and clear
about missed sessions, while also demonstrating empathy. Schools are encouraged
to use multiple channels of communication, including digital, written, and
face-to-face contact, and to tailor their approach to the needs of individual
families.
Recent and related developments
The government has committed to expanding the network of attendance
hubs - schools with strong practice that support others - and scaling up the
attendance mentor programme to reach more pupils with persistent absence. In
addition, new regulations are being phased in, requiring all schools to share
daily attendance registers and setting out clearer expectations around
collaboration and sanctions.
Implications and risks
Schools must now review their policies, registers, and coding
practices to ensure compliance. Staff training is essential so that everyone
involved understands how to apply codes correctly, follow up on absences
consistently, and use data effectively. Governors and senior leaders must take
visible ownership of attendance and make it a strategic priority. Some pupils
will require intensive, cross-sector support from services such as mental
health, social care, and health provision, which places increased importance on
partnership working. Legal action remains a backstop rather than the first
option, and an over-reliance on enforcement could damage relationships with
families. Finally, schools and local authorities must ensure that data systems
are capable of meeting the new requirements for information sharing and
reporting.
Recommended actions
· Review and update
the school’s attendance policy and ensure it reflects the 2024 guidance.
· Appoint or
confirm a senior leader as attendance champion with clear accountability.
· Train all staff
in accurate register coding, data use, and communication with families.
· Establish regular
internal attendance review meetings to analyse patterns and plan interventions.
· Strengthen family
engagement using the DfE communication toolkit, ensuring timely, personalised
contact with parents and carers.
Resources
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