A Week in the Life of an Attendance Adviser

Come along with me to see what a week in the life of an Attendance Adviser looks like. I laugh to myself as I say this – I feel like an “Instagram influencer” filming what they eat in a day. Do not worry, I will not bore you with pictures of the breakfast biscuits I eat on my way to school. What I will do is take you with me as I navigate schools, legislation, and the importance of developing good working relationships.

The national picture for school attendance has changed dramatically in recent years and each school I visit will have differing reasons for high levels of absence. Is it Emotional Barriers to School Attendance (EBSA)? Is it a lack of SEND support in mainstream schools and lack of SEND provisions? Is it changes in parental attitudes towards education? What we do know is that attendance levels are not recovering to pre-pandemic levels and Covid19 has left us with a legacy of too many children not accessing their right to a full-time education. More schools are needing support with attendance and that is okay! Here is what a typical week looks like for a One Education Attendance Adviser.

Monday

In a large secondary school, I work closely with the attendance and safeguarding team to ensure the school is working in line with their own policies. This work includes ensuring the school is fulfilling their legal duty to safeguard all children on their roll. Each week I quality assure the previous week’s registers coding and feed back to the attendance team any queries or actions. This ensures that coding is accurate and legally compliant and that there is sufficient information inputted to verify each code.

There are high numbers of children who are persistently absent from school for varying reasons, many with concerns around EBSA. I look at the home visits completed the previous week and ensure that children who need a visit have had one. This is incredibly important and was not the common practice it needed to be, so a lot of work has gone into ensuring these are part of the school’s daily procedures.

I finish the day with parent support meetings, where students have accrued 10 sessions of unauthorised absence in 10 weeks. The purpose of each meeting is to offer families support to improve attendance in the form of attendance contracts/action plans and Early Help Assessments (EHA) and referrals to external agencies where appropriate.

Tuesday

I am visiting a new school today. A primary school that has traditionally not utilised their attendance policy and rarely had the need for “difficult conversations.” The school originally had no systems in place for tracking and monitoring pupil attendance.

As an Attendance Adviser, my first point of call is to meet with the Headteacher who is also the Attendance Champion and the DSL. We discuss the trends and issues which are emerging and the Headteacher provides me with a list of children who are persistently absent from school. We do some case planning for families where school have concerns and create a plan to meet immediate needs. I create a tracking spreadsheet which shows each child’s attendance week by week and allows school to see in real time if attendance is dipping. It also prompts support offers and shows an escalation of interventions.

With new attendance officers there are sometimes large gaps in knowledge around coding and attendance procedures. I spend the next few hours with the team, quality assuring registers and ensuring the coding is compliant. I talk the team through this in an informal way – explaining implications as I go. I also provide guidance on how to use the tracking spreadsheet with the team, providing a step-by-step guide of the reports used to export data and how to input this and colour-code to make it more visual.

Wednesday

Today is an early start in a large secondary school. I provided attendance officer support during the previous term, while their new attendance officer was appointed. I return to the school to provide support to the new attendance officer and train them on the job alongside the school’s induction procedures.

I support with first day calling, register coding, recording information and ensuring the registers are correctly marked by teachers. I take the lead in advising parents around whether attendance is authorised/unauthorised and debrief with the attendance officer after each call detailing why I have made those decisions. We tackle each challenge as it comes and I work alongside her, guiding her practice and supporting her to understand her role and responsibilities.

Thursday

A break from the norm today, I have some time working from the office, developing training and creating workshops for an upcoming multi academy trust conference day. I love hands-on work and getting stuck in alongside schools but also value the opportunity to provide dedicated time to professionals, training them on attendance. A big focus of the content I am creating is Working Together to Improve Attendance (2024). The statutory guidance creates a really strong directive from the Department for Education (DfE) on how students and their families should be supported and has prompted schools to reflect on their own support systems and interventions to improve attendance.

Friday

We have made it to the end of the week! Today is a challenging day as I have finished my attendance assessment for a secondary school and must provide some important feedback to a Headteacher. What was originally agreed to be a short assessment with some support around day-to-day processes has evolved and I have come across some areas of concern which could leave the school vulnerable to criticism.

On completing the assessment, I have devised a plan on how I can support school to resolve the issues. With the information shared, my advice and plan provided to the Headteacher, I follow up with minutes of our meeting.

There really are no two days the same in my role and I love every second of it. As an Attendance Adviser, I am in a privileged role where I can meet and work with many different schools all striving for the same thing: supporting families; engaging children in education and providing all children with opportunities for success!

If you want to explore how the team can support your school, please do not hesitate to contact the School Attendance and Safeguarding Team at One Education.