Attendance Staff Training Bundle

There’s no guidance included in this resource bundle - just the following editable attendance scenarios. Each one contains a three-stage situation that mimics the types of attendance issues that schools may encounter. First, staff can look at the initial picture presented to them and discuss what concerns around pupil attendance they may have. Then, further information is revealed, allowing staff to consider how they'd take action, as well as how other professionals and the attendance officer, manager, lead or co-ordinator can help. Lastly, staff can view the resolution and consider the next steps.

The scenarios cover the following topics: 

1. Bullying and Physical & Mental Health
2. Child Criminal Exploitation (CCE)
3. Finance
4. Sickness-Related Absence
5. Substance Addiction
6. Young Carers

Each scenario has an accompanying PowerPoint that details the scenario in parts and the key questions for discussion, allowing them to be used interactively during a staff meeting, INSET or twilight. 

Furthermore, there's a PowerPoint called Working Together to Improve Attendance which highlights the key parts from the DfE's own document that are applicable to teachers and support staff. This allows your team to gain a deeper understanding of why good attendance is important for every single pupil as well as considering the role that all staff have to play in reducing pupil absence. 

Please note the following disclaimer attached to this resource bundle: These resources address potentially sensitive and/or distressing subjects and are intended to be used for training purposes only. They may also contain strong language as well as terms, themes and content that depict child abuse, neglect and exploitation. All of this could elicit emotional responses and be triggering for staff using them. You must fully read each scenarios before use and it is your duty to carefully assess their appropriateness based on your staff and your context. If you deem each one to be suitable, you must ensure that adequate support is accessible for anyone who may be impacted by the content.

Whatever your job title - attendance co-ordinator, attendance officer, attendance lead, attendance manager - if you're the person with a designated responsibility for attendance in your setting, this pack is ideal for you.  School business managers (SBMs) , school administrators and school office staff may also find aspects of this pack useful, and of course, headteachers/principals and other senior leaders looking to reduce pupil absence rates can use the pack and delegate different aspects among the SLT.

Now more than ever, pupils are experiencing more and more barriers to attending school regularly. Whether these are down to the cost of living crisis, the after-effects of the Covid-19 pandemic, rising pupil mental health issues or something else, pupil absence rates are a rightly a concern for many schools. This, combined with dwindling educational welfare officer support in some areas, means that many schools are looking to take swifter action, which is why we've designed this pack to support school leaders.

The resources in this bundle are also available in the Attendance Strategy, Monitoring and Training Pack, which contains so much more - it's got full guidance, resources for whole-school attendance strategy plus templates to help uncover the barriers to an individual pupil's attendance in order to create attendance intervention plans. If you're looking for a resource to support the bigger picture of attendance across the school, we'd highly recommend it, plus it's the best way for schools to get value for money too: 

• Attendance Strategy, Monitoring and Training Pack 

If you like the sound of either whole-school attendance strategy support or pupil-focused attendance plans and resources, then both these are bundled too:

• Attendance Co-ordinator: Whole-School Strategy and Audit Bundle
• Attendance Co-ordinator: Monitoring and Pupil-Focused Planning Bundle