Pupil attendance and absence management policy

School should work with other agencies to ensure a full package of support is provided to the pupil; this will include:

• advice and guidance from the School Support team
• support from Family Support teams for children who have an active early help assessment and a family worker
• details of the reasonable adjustments academic and pastoral to support the pupil
• request for outreach support for Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) needs, for example, Social, Emotional and Mental Health (SEMH) One Point Panel, specialist support from other agencies, for example, mental health, 0 to 19 nursing service
• Education, Health and Care plans (EHCP) interim reviews where necessary
• support from Social Care teams for children who are Children in Need (CIN), Child Protection (CP) and CYPIOC
• safeguarding agency referrals, for example, CHUB, if children are in need of intervention due to neglect, abuse, radicalisation, or any form of exploitation

Attendance improvement plans used at tier 1 and tier 2 should have a written record with minutes produced detailing the discussion, the key issues and barriers to attendance, actions that each member will take to resolve the issues and an attendance target set. The attendance improvement plan should run for no less than 6 school weeks. Parents and carers should receive a copy of the minutes from this meeting. A review date should be set and agreed with parents. During the attendance improvement support plan meeting, school staff should detail how contact with the parent and pupil will take place and who will make the contact. This may be a weekly support meeting, a home visit or where this is not feasible due to the parents' work commitments, a telephone contact as a minimum.

It is advisable that from the attendance improvement plan meeting, further absences are unauthorised unless evidence is provided to school to inform that the absence is for a serious and unavoidable reason. If the absence is for reasons of illness, acceptable medical evidence that should be considered may take the form of a prescription slip, sight of medication prescribed by the GP,  note or letter from the GP, medical or dental appointment letter, or evidence that the pupil was sent home from school too ill to remain in school. In these instances, the absence for the day the child was sent home should be authorised and a common-sense approach taken for any further related subsequent absence.

Parents and carers should be made aware that continuing unauthorised absence may result in escalation to tier 3 and a referral to the local authority for legal intervention.

On review, the school should decide either to extend the attendance improvement support plan, make a referral to the local authority for legal proceedings to commence, or end the attendance improvement support plan if absence is no longer an issue. 

Where a pupil's absence continues following the interventions detailed in tier 1 and 2 and the threshold for a referral to the locality team is met then escalation to tier 3 should follow.

The Local Authority threshold for referral is 10 unauthorised absence sessions in the previous ten school week period.