Your board should regularly review attendance data and help your leaders focus improvement efforts
This involves:
- Regularly reviewing attendance data at board meetings (including looking at school-level trends and benchmarking with other schools)
- Paying particular attention to pupil cohorts that have had poor attendance historically or face entrenched barriers to attendance. For example, pupils:
- With a social worker
- From a background or ethnicity where attendance has been low
- With a long-term medical condition
- With special education needs and/or disabilities (SEND)
- Who are eligible for free school meals
- Working with your senior leaders to set goals or areas of focus for attendance and providing challenge and support on these areas
This is explained in the DfE's statutory guidance on working together to improve school attendance.
Read our article on your role in improving school attendance to understand your other duties under the guidance.
Persistent absence is when a pupil misses 10% or more of school This is