Attendance
Attendance
All staff will take responsibility to quickly identify pupils who are at risk of disengagement or marginalisation and schools will respond with proactive early support and tailored interventions. The overall aims of the Attendance Strand are:
- Improved attendance of targeted groups
- Schools to be at least at national attendance levels
- Reduction in severely absent pupils
- Reduced levels of unauthorised absence.
Cambridgeshire Virtual School
Last year, we made a successful bid to collaborate with Cambridgeshire Virtual School. The Virtual School, which supports children and young people in care between the ages of 2 and 18, fund our Specialist Attendance Lead, Sam Barnes, to work on a project with their educational psychologist to improve the attendance of our most vulnerable pupils.
Sam Barnes, Specialist Attendance Lead
Recently, Sam Barnes has been working with Cambridgeshire Virtual Schools to analyse findings from research on non-attendance in pupils from across our Trust. The aim is to deliver targeted, evidence-based interventions to key cohorts of pupils. The premise of the interventions is to improve a sense of belonging to their school which, in turn, will positively impact their school attendance.
School Attendance Help and Resources
It can be tricky deciding whether or not to keep your child off school, nursery or playgroup when they are unwell. Click here to read NHS’s guidance on your child’s illness and if they should or should not attend school.
Being in school and having the best attendance possible underpins all the many benefits of school for your child, such as their learning, wellbeing and wider development. For some children, attending school every day will be harder than for others. This is why schools, and local councils in some cases, are committed to working together with families to solve problems and support your child’s school attendance. The Department for Education’s guide, ‘Working together to improve school attendance’, can be found in the Downloads section below and covers two areas:
- Parents’ responsibilities for school attendance and what you need to do when your child needs to be absent
- How schools and local authorities will work with you to support your child’s attendance
