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LPSA Target 6: Schools Attendance

• To improve school attendance.

Confidence in achieving at least 60% stretch:

Medium

Targets

• Indicator 1 - Increase attendance at a group of 11 secondary schools and 6 primary to 92.89% average attendance
• Indicator 2 - At the remaining 18 secondary schools to 94.28% average attendance
• Indicator 3 - Reduce sessions lost to fixed term exclusions by 9970 (11% improvement on 04/05) (reduction of 2464 sessions)
• Indicator 4 - No more than 69 Permanent exclusions (reduction by 20 on 04/05)

How and when targets are measured

• Indicator 1 - attendance returns to the LA following end of each Term 1 - 5
• Indicator 2 - attendance returns end of Terms 2, 4 and 5
• Additionally, monitoring through the Education Welfare Service and Behaviour & Attendance Consultants to raise alert of specific difficulties or concerns
• Indicators 3 & 4 - monthly exclusion reports produced by the LA following the central collation of individual school reporting of fixed term and permanent exclusion

Progress planned at this stage

• Indicators 1 & 2– Continuing work with schools to ensure they are implementing robust strategies for managing and monitoring attendance. Raising the profile of the contributions partners can make to improving attendance through fora such as the Behaviour and Attendance Strategy Group, Behaviour and Attendance Meetings with school behaviour and attendance leaders, Secondary Team Conferences, School Branch training and development “All Days”, Children and Families Branch management meetings and Parenting Wiltshire with a focus on parenting programmes. Through Education Welfare Service county and local team meetings, county learning and development training days, supervision and appraisal ensure that Education Welfare Officers are working consistently and to high standards across the county, that they are appraised of changes in legislation and they are well prepared for supporting schools in their determining of the school attendance action plan for the final year of the LPSA and are robust in the monitoring and evaluation of their interventions in relation to individual case intervention for non-attendance. The contracting of an external provider “Welfare Call Ltd” to monitor the attendance of children in care (formerly looked after) from September 2007.
• Indicators 3 & 4 – Contribute to the further development of school collaborative partnerships which include behaviour and attendance. Through the Behaviour and Attendance Strategy Group develop more strategic approaches to data management which includes a more robust analysis of exclusion data by age, gender, geography, needs etc. Local Authority officers and head teachers in the West to continue to work in partnership on tracking secondary pupil case studies in the West of the county; contribute to profiling case studies of primary excluded pupils initiated through the Behaviour and Attendance Strategy Group. Contribute and work in partnership with agencies to raise the profile and develop the use of parenting contracts where pupils are at risk of exclusion.
• Receive initial feedback on the initiative in North Wilts: “Active Enterprise at Springfields” programme aimed at engaging disaffected young people to reduce exclusion and improve attendance and engagement with education.

Progress achieved at this stage

• End of Term 5 the 11 secondary and 6 primary targeted schools named in Indicator 1 have a collective attendance of 91.37%. The cumulative attendance for terms 1 to 5 is 91.70%. The rest of the secondary schools forming Indicator 2 had a collective attendance of 92.63% for across Terms 1 - 5. However, this is a provisional result since data for two schools was accidentally not gathered by the end of term; a correction to the final outturn for 06/07 will be made in September in time for the next LPSA reporting period.
• A further netw

  o

  rk meeting has been held in July to which the schools in this indicator were invited. The main focus was confirming to schools, using data charts, the progress made individually and collectively to date; the impact that the introduction of national absence codes has had on attendance figures; and the opportunity to share ideas for planned actions and initiatives on ways of improving attendance during the final year of the LPSA.
• The Education Welfare Service has worked in partnership with the youth offending service and police to agree target areas and dates for Truancy Sweeps during 2007/08. To date since September 2006, 14 multi-agency truancy sweeps have been carried out in targeted areas across the county, resulting in 144 children being stopped. Of those 82% had a valid reason for being out of school, 17% no valid reason and 2% were home educated.
• Since September 2006, 84 Penalty Notices for poor attendance have been issued to parents. Of those, 21% have been paid, 31% have not paid and have been taken to court; 6% have been withdrawn and 38% are pending.
• During this academic year, 41 cases have been taken to court for prosecution against parents for the non-attendance of their children. Of those, 76% have resulted in a finding of guilt; a further 24% are still pending.

• Information shows that the number of days lost to fixed term exclusions from September 2006 through to end July 2007 to date is 9963 compared with 10433 for the same period last year, a reduction of approx 5.0%. If we can maintain or even further reduce this figure, we will have achieved 100%, the target for Indicator 3.
• The number of effective permanent exclusions for the period September 2006 to end of July 2007 is 74 and is the same as that for the same period last year. We are in line with the planned trajectory for achieving Indicator 4 by end of the next academic year, however, the number of  head teacher permanent exclusions has risen by 2% this year to 90 and will impact on the number of effective exclusions carried over to the next academic year. Additionally, please note the possible risks identified under next heading.
• At the Behaviour and Attendance Meetings, information has been delivered to secondary school behaviour and attendance leaders on the new legislation regarding exclusions due to come into force in September 2007.
• At a recent Secondary Team Conference Day, issues linked with exclusion and attendance were raised in facilitated workshop sessions.
• At a multi-agency Children and Families Branch management meeting, a presentation was made on the new legislation on exclusions and parenting contracts and orders due to come into effect from September 2007 including the implications for schools and the local authority of the measures.
• A written guide for parents and carers on exclusions has been revised and is due to be with schools and the local authority for the start of the new academic year.
• Discussions have taken place with Parenting Wiltshire and plans made to increase the number of parents taking part in parenting programmes as a way of assisting them with their child’s poor behaviour with the aim of reducing further the number of days lost to exclusion.
• A draft of the ‘Fair Access protocol has been presented at the Admission Forum for consultation and feedback. A final draft will be re-presented for final ratification at the next meeting of the Admission Forum.
• All primary schools have been provided with a training pack on parenting contract and orders by the end of Term 6, delivered through the Primary School Cluster workshop meetings during June and facilitated by Primary School Advisory Team.

Significant problems encountered/predicted

• For Indicators 1 and 2, the introduction of national absence codes and different recording and collection systems has had a negative impact of increasing absence by approximately 0.3% to date. This has also proved to be the trend nationally with the DCSF (now DCSF) reporting a similar occurrence. An explanation for this is thought in part to be the result of more robust monitoring by the local authority and the government which is facilitating improved accuracy and consistency of attendance recording and reporting across schools. Whilst this is exactly what Wiltshire would want, not only in terms of the integrity of data, improved safety of children and reduction in children missing education, nevertheless the change in the collection and recording is not using the same parameters as those by which the LPSA targets were negotiated and are likely to make achieving the target more difficult. However, on a more positive note, it might be that schools may be able to introduce measures for this coming year that will better ameliorate and absence rise eg reducing use of study leave, incorporating pupil planning days outside of the statutory sessions they are required to be available.
• For Indicators 3 and 4, the new legislation being introduced from September 2007 whereby, parents have to supervise their children for the first 5 days of any exclusion and schools (for fixed period exclusions of 6 days or more) and the Local Authority (for Permanent Exclusions) have to provide full-time  suitable education from the 6^th day of exclusion, rather than the 16^th day as is the case currently, is threatening to increase the number of days lost to fixed period exclusion and permanent exclusion. Added to this is the delay in many secondary schools forming local collaborative partnerships as is expected by the government from September 2007. However, it is hoped that the Fair Access Protocol, when finally ratified by the Admissions Forum (having been out to consultation twice with all schools) will help local protocols to be implemented which will encourage managed moves rather than permanent exclusion and help reduce fixed period exclusions.

Recovery actions in hand (where applicable)

As discussed above.

External assistance required

As discussed with Sharon Britton at the LPSA Leads meeting.  

Comments

None.

Contact Details

By Post

Maxine Gibson
Education Welfare Office
LET Salisbury
The Hollows
Wilton
Salisbury
SP2 0JE

By Telephone

01722 743907

By Email

Opening Hours

Monday-Friday 9am to 5pm

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