Attendance guidance

A revised version of Working together to improve School Attendance became statutory on the 19 August 2024. This includes laying regulations to mandate attendance data sharing by all schools so schools, local authorities and DfE have access to near-live data from all state funded schools from the beginning of the next school year:

Gov.UK: Share your daily school attendance data

The regulations have modernised school attendance and admission registers (including updating attendance codes, rules on granting leaves of absence and on who can access registers) to improve the accuracy of attendance data to help schools and local authorities put better, more targeted support in place as early as possible.

Gov.UK: Working together to improve school attendance

The Statutory Attendance & Participation Team have developed a summary sheet of the updated attendance codes to support schools.

The DfE expect all schools to have a clear, published Attendance Policy which has been reviewed and is compliant with DfE Guidance. Please see document below for support with this.

Mental Health Issues affecting school attendance

Following DfE Guidance – Mental Health Issues affecting a pupil’s school attendance – dated February 2023, the Statutory Attendance & Participation Team has developed an information sheet to help schools and professionals understand how to interpret and approach practice, when required, to support a pupil who may have mental health which is impacting on their school attendance.

Gov.UK: Mental heath issues affecting a pupils attendance guidance for schools