“Working Together to Improve School Attendance”

Published: 7 September 2022

As many of you will be aware, from September 2022, new Department for Education guidance is now in place for maintained schools, academies, independent schools and Local Authorities. As it stands, this is non-statutory but it is expected to become statutory from the beginning of academic year 2023-24.

This guidance follows the government’s response to the recent consultation on school attendance and includes the new expectations for schools, parents, Local Authority attendance services and wider partners.

One of the expectations is the introduction of ‘attendance support meetings’ for all schools in the city and further actions associated with these which will fundamentally impact on how schools work with the Local Authority in addressing and ultimately improving school attendance within the city.

The Education Welfare Service will be acting as the ‘Attendance Support Team’ as outlined within the guidance which will mean a fundamental change in how this team operates as we move towards implementation. As it stands, Education Welfare Officers are attached to schools via Sold Service agreements and under on-going arrangements with maintained school colleagues. As this academic year progresses, we will be shifting how the service operates to meet requirements whilst attempting to maintain agreements already in place with a plan to be ‘guidance ready’ by September 2023.

For schools where existing Service Level Agreements are in place, these will remain in place with no amendments for the length of the agreement.

The first part of this ‘shift’ is to ensure that all schools are aware of the guidance itself and to encourage, if not already undertaken, conversations within senior leadership teams. We also want to ensure that you are all kept up to date with the progress being made over the coming months. Either myself or my Head of Service, Fiona Colton, will be attending upcoming Head Teachers meetings to provide further information and answer any queries that you may have and further information will also be provided via this circular, through the Education Hub meetings and School Attendance Hub meetings.

For more information contact Jonathan Howie

Email: Jonathan.howie@derby.gov.uk

Telephone Number: 01332 642254

Education