Management Information Sheet
Attendance Targets
TO ALL HEADTEACHERS, CHAIRS OF GOVERNORS AND CLERKS TO GOVERNORS
Dear ColleaguesSchool Attendance Targets
We recently received from the DfES notification of Statutory Instrument 2005 no 58 The Education (School Attendance Targets) (England). This addition to the School Standards and Framework Act was laid before Parliament on 24th January 2005 and came into force on the 14th February 2005.
The main duty set out in the regulations concerns school attendance targets. It requires the Governing Body of every maintained school to set annual targets for reducing the number of absences from schools. It is now the duty of every Governing Body to set attendance targets and submit them to their local authority. These annual targets need to be set by 31st December for each following school year. The annual target is required to be the total absences expected in the school year expressed as a percentage of the total possible attendances of the pupils in the school.
These targets need to be agreed with the Norfolk Children's Services and submitted to them by 31st December each year. It is stipulated in the regulations that where the local authority is not satisfied with the targets submitted by the Governing Body it will state this fact and the Governing Body will need to submit a revised target within 21 days of being informed by them. If upon receipt of the revised targets the local authority is still not satisfied then it can set the target. A Governing Body cannot modify a target during a school year without the agreement of the local authority.
As part of the regulations the first statutory attendance target needs to be set by 1st April 2005 for the school year starting in September 2005. Therefore we need to have from each school their school attendance target for the period, submitted to Norfolk Children's Services by 18th March 2005. We have had to set this date as Easter is early this year and we have to collect and collate all of the targets before the end of the school term. This will then ensure that we can submit them to the DfES within the stipulated timescales.
We therefore attach to this letter a proforma which needs to be printed off, completed and returned by the set date. If you have any further queries about this matter please contact Terry Cook at the above address.
I am sorry for the very short notice we are giving you to set and submit the targets, but we have only just recently received the notification and copy of the Statutory Instrument from the DfES.
Yours sincerely
Fred Corbett Assistant Director (Children's Services)
Children's Services
The Education (School Attendance Targets)(England)
Regulations 2005
Submission of School Attendance Target to the Local Education Authority
School...........................
DfES code 926......................
School Target for percentage of total absence in academic year 2005-2006
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Signed: Headteacher .............................
Signed: Chair of Governors or Governor on behalf of the governing body........................
Please return this form by 18th March 2005
To Robin Biss, at the
Norfolk Education Advisory Services
Woodside Road
Norwich
NR7 9QL