Management Information Sheet

On 6 May 2022, the Department for Education (DfE) published Working together to improve school attendance: Guidance for maintained schools, academies, independent schools, and local authorities along with a Summary table of responsibilities for school attendance.

The new guidance for is information only at this stage so that schools and colleges can plan for the commencement of the guidance on 1 September 2022. Existing guidance on school attendance remains in force until the end of the academic year.

This guidance follows the government's response to the recent consultation on school attendance and includes new expectations for all schools, governors, trusts and local authorities. It forms part of a package of proposals to improve the consistency of attendance support provided to pupils and parents across England as set out in the recent white paper.

In Norfolk, the work already undertaken to develop a local Attendance Strategy will support schools and the LA to meet the requirements of the new guidance. We received 110 responses during the consultations we undertook with schools and other agencies during the Spring Term.

The feedback indicates there is a generally high level of confidence from partner organisations and school staff in relation to school attendance and lots of good practice already happening within education settings. There are clear areas for development but the consultation response indicates the four priorities identified within the strategy are the right ones.

The results will inform the detailed action plan that will support the LA to work with schools and a range of partners to deliver these outcomes. Further information about the strategy and next steps will be published later this term.

Webinar: Working Together to Improve School Attendance

In order to start to consider the implications of the new guidance for schools, we are offering a webinar next week. These webinars will be led by Katie Griffiths, Attendance & Entitlement Manager and/or Kelly Waters, Senior Safeguarding Adviser.

There will be an opportunity to ask questions, however if all of these cannot be answered during the session, a member of the Attendance Team will get in touch with delegates via email following the webinar. The webinar will be recorded and placed in the Attendance Section of the Norfolk Schools website.

You can book your place on one of the sessions via the s4s website by clicking on one of the links below:

Support for schools

To support schools to prepare for the new guidance, and in response to feedback received from schools in the Attendance Strategy consultation, we are taking some additional actions as follows:

• We will make attendance toolkit and model policy universally available via the Schools and Learning Providers website as soon as possible this term.
• Attendance networks will be universally available with immediate effect; further details about the Summer Term networks will follow in due course.