Slide 1 © Crown copyright 2008 Manchester Using data to improve attendance 23 rd September 2008

Slide 2 © Crown copyright 2008 Aims for today A thorough understanding of the national and local attendance situation A clear understanding of what schools need to know to improve attendance, how they find it out and what they then do about it Next steps: –Arrangements for systematic data analysis, using the PA framework –identifying key actions, CPD needs, monitoring systems including the PA workbook –arrangements for review and subsequent action-planning.

Slide 3 © Crown copyright 2008 If the attendance of primary children in Manchester was in line with the national average what would be the potential ppt increase in Level 4 and above for English and maths at KS2? 1.2ppt 2.4ppt 3.6ppt 4.8ppt

Slide 4 © Crown copyright 2008 When making their judgement on the attendance of learners inspectors must consider the school’s attendance in comparison to: 1.Previous performance 2.Schools in similar circumstances 3.National average 4.The school’s efforts to improve attendance

Slide 5 © Crown copyright 2008 What criteria are used to identify a persistent absentee? 1.A pupil who has been absent from school for more than 3 weeks 2.A pupil who regularly misses school on a Monday 3.A pupil who has attendance below 80% 4.A pupil who has attended less than 4 weeks in the school year

Slide 6 © Crown copyright 2008 How frequently does the performance of PA priority schools have to be reported? 1.6 weekly 2.Monthly 3.Annually 4.Termly

Slide 7 © Crown copyright 2008 Which LA has the highest levels of persistent absenteeism nationally? 1.Hull 2.Salford 3.Manchester 4.Tower Hamlets

Slide 8 © Crown copyright 2008 A 1,000 pupil school with 90% attendance If each pupil attends an extra 1 day per half term, attendance rises to 93.2% To achieve the same attendance via individual casework with 150 pupils, each would have to attend how many extra days?

Slide 9 © Crown copyright 2008 A parent / carer asks for advice concerning a holiday in term time. Which of the following statements might you make? 1.The school has to approve requests of up to 10 days 2.The request has to be made in advance of the holiday being taken 3.The school may authorise absence for up to 10 days 4.There has to be special circumstances in order for the school to authorise a request for term time holidays.

Slide 10 © Crown copyright Study Leave 2.An IEP which involves working with the school caretaker 3.An IEP which involves the pupil working on their own, unsupervised, in the town carrying out surveys 4.Attending another school or setting for part of their agreed education Which of the following could be recorded as approved educational activity ( B code -counting as being present)?

Slide 11 © Crown copyright 2008 Section 8 (h) of the 2006 Regs. allows for a pupil who has been continuously absent for a period of not less than 20 school days to be removed from roll providing certain criteria are met. Which of the following criteria need to apply in such cases? 1.None of the absences must have been authorised 2.The school does not have reasonable grounds to suspect the pupil has been ill or unable to attend because of any unavoidable cause 3.The school does not know where the pupil is 4.The LA does not know where the pupil is

Slide 12 © Crown copyright 2008 How should a pupil planning day (i.e. a day set aside for pupils to attend a 20 minute interview with teachers and parents) be recorded? 1.Pupil can be marked as present for both sessions provided they attend their interview 2.Pupil can be recorded as present for the half day when the interview takes place but authorised absence for the other half day 3.Pupil can be recorded as present for the half day when the interview takes place and educated off site for the other half day 4.The day cannot count as one of the 190 days that the school is open

Slide 13 © Crown copyright 2008 The national and Manchester context

Slide 14 © Crown copyright 2008 Absence from 1996 – 2007

Slide 15 © Crown copyright 2008 The Manchester picture Overall absence

Slide 16 © Crown copyright 2008 Compared with statistical neighbours

Slide 17 © Crown copyright 2008 KS3 L c/w attendance

Slide 18 © Crown copyright 2008 School-level KS4 results by overall absence rate

Slide 19 © Crown copyright 2008 Slide 19 Using data to improve attendance

Slide 20 © Crown copyright % of pupils account for 23.4% of all overall absence and 52.9% of all unauthorised absence Persistent absence

Slide 21 © Crown copyright 2008 Absence in in the priority schools varied by half term Year Average 10.29

Slide 22 © Crown copyright 2008 Priority PA Schools and LA Children’s Services Nationally 1138 secondary schools with PA identified 38 intensive support LAs 106 targeted support LAs Regionally in the North West 9 intensive support LAs 13 targeted support LAs 186 priority schools Locally in Manchester 15 priority schools 2,012 young people

Slide 23 © Crown copyright 2008 Persistent Absence intensive support LAs LAs with 7% or more secondary pupils with PA Manchester has: 12.8% secondary pupils with PA (2,826 pupils)

Slide 24 © Crown copyright 2008 Persistent Absence priority schools Pupils with 48 or more sessions of absence in Autumn 2007 and Spring 2008 combined Priority secondary schools have 7% or more pupils with persistent absence

Slide 25 © Crown copyright 2008 Persistent absence in your school: During the autumn term last year, how many young people had: 28+ sessions of absence? 64+ sessions of absence? Do you know WHO and WHY?

Slide 26 © Crown copyright 2008 National secondary absence by code

Slide 27 © Crown copyright 2008 Manchester absence by code (secondary)

Slide 28 © Crown copyright 2008 What were the reasons for absence in your school? Analysis

Slide 29 © Crown copyright 2008 What does your data tell you?

Slide 30 © Crown copyright 2008 Structural impact on weekly attendance

Slide 31 © Crown copyright 2008 Attendance and attainment

Slide 32 © Crown copyright 2008

Slide 33 © Crown copyright 2008 So what? Some questions to consider: Does our attendance policy identify what data we collect when and what we do with it?

Slide 34 © Crown copyright 2008 Who collects data in our school? What do we collect weekly, monthly, half- termly, termly and annually? Who do we share it with – staff (who?), governors (how?), pupils, parents? What does it tell us? What do we do about it?

Slide 35 © Crown copyright 2008 Addressing PA Do you know how many PA pupils you have and who they are? Do you know the reasons for their absence? Do you know what the main reasons for absence at your school are?

Slide 36 © Crown copyright 2008 Action points Identify all PA pupils and the reasons for their absence. Identify and track multi-agency interventions Monitor their progress on a regular basis. Analyse the reasons for absence for the whole school and by year groups – identify “hotspots” – whole school and year-specific.

Slide 37 © Crown copyright 2008 Attendance and attainment Do you and your staff fully appreciate the link between attendance and attainment? Do your pupils and parents also understand the link? Simon Simon Do you analyse pupils’ attainment against their attendance?

Slide 38 © Crown copyright 2008 Action points Brief all staff on the PA agenda. Highlight the link between attendance and attainment. Use displays, Power Points in assemblies, parents’ evenings, in the foyer to make sure that pupils and parents understand the link between attendance and attainment.

Slide 39 © Crown copyright 2008 DCSF attendance homepage Effective practice manual stage3/issues/behaviour/focus/attendance_man ual/ stage3/issues/behaviour/focus/attendance_man ual/

Slide 40 © Crown copyright 2008 Crown Copyright Statement The content of this publication may be reproduced free of charge by schools and local authorities provided that the material is acknowledged as Crown copyright, the publication title is specified, it is reproduced accurately and not used in a misleading context. Anyone else wishing to reuse part or all of the content of this publication should apply to OPSI for a core licence. The permission to reproduce Crown copyright protected material does not extend to any material in this publication which is identified as being the copyright of a third party. Applications to reproduce the material from this publication should be addressed to: OPSI, The Information Policy Division, St Clements House, 2–16 Colegate, Norwich NR3 1BQ Fax: