1. ATTENDANCE CONFERENCE
Wednesday 8th June 2016
Sans Souci Training Centre
Course tutor: Lorraine Lord
Housekeeping:
Timings
Domestics
Fire Exits
Lunch
Format
Mobiles
Confidentiality
Feedback

2. Overview “Missing” National Data Sets Vulnerable groups Punctuality
Ofsted and attendance/safeguarding
ESCOS, Early Help, CSE, Radicalisation and Extremism, CME, Enforcement
Plenary

3. Non School Attendance and Missing
Child Missing from Education
Child at Risk of Missing Education
Child Missing Education
Child Missing
Child Missing – from home/care or missing on school site?
If it comes to your attention that a child is missing, you must notify your DSL immediately and complete the relevant concern form in your child protection policy.
Child missing on site …. What are your procedures?

4. Children Missing From Education
A child going missing from education is a potential indicator of abuse or neglect. Staff in education provision should follow the provision’s procedures for dealing with children that go missing from education, particularly on repeat occasions, to help identify the risk of abuse and neglect, including sexual exploitation, and to help prevent the risks of their going missing in the future.
The pathway on P 7 of the DSL handbook is helpful in reminding all staff of their responsibilities around attendance, timely completion of registers (statutory duties around this) and the role of the school policy. Worth considering when you last had a whole staff meeting on this. Particular one to consider is children who may go missing during the school day – eg: not attending a mid afternoon lesson – are they on site of off site? How do you know? (eg: Rotherham/Oxford, pupils leaving school during the afternoon, marked in after lunch. Jeremy Forest SCR – pupil was truanting from lessons, but was still in school, in JF’s classroom. How vigilant are we on this? Loopholes/consistency. Daniel Pelka SCR – Pupil had been absent from school prior to his death.
CME/CMFE clarify difference.
High profile nationally on children missing from education, high profile with Ofsted, letters from Michael Wilshaw.

5. Best Practice Ensure all pupils attend school regularly
Ensure all pupils attend lessons on time and arrive at school on time (punctuality)
Should the national average figures for attendance be a minimum baseline expectation for all pupils? What is your percentage average? Trend over time? have you raised the bar?
Should NO persistent absence be our starting point? How can we erradicate persistent absence?

6. National Data - Primary
Primary attendance 96.0%
Authorised 3.3%
Unauthorised 0.7%
Absence overall 4%
Persistent absence 2.7%
What is the current authorised absence rate? Are authorised rates higher than national? Reasons? Discussion around what is authorised and policy/process around authorised absence, is it fully applied? What impact is authorised absence having on overall attendance rates?
What is the current unauthorised absence rate in your provision? Is the U code also being applied to pupils who are late after the register closes? What are the education provision doing to reduce this rate? What early help is in place? What is the impact of their work? Evaluative sentence in report.
Pupils not attending school regularly: all those with attendance between 95% and 90%; checking how the school is addressing these in line with school policy. What early help is in place to improve attendance for these pupils? What is the impact? Note additional vulnerability, eg: disadvantaged, open children’s social work cases.
Persistently absent pupils: all those with attendance below 90%; checking how the school is addressing these in line with legislation and school policy. What is the percentage of PA pupils and how many? What early help work is in place? Engagement with enforcement team? What is the impact of the provision’s work (if any) on working to reduce PA. Note additional vulnerability, eg: disadvantaged, open children’s social work cases.

7. National Data - Secondary
Attendance 94.8%,
Authorised Absence 4%,
Unauthorised 1.2%,
Absence overall 5.2%,
Persistent absence 5.5%
What is the current authorised absence rate? Are authorised rates higher than national? Reasons? What is authorised and policy/process around authorised absence, is it fully applied? What impact is authorised absence having on overall attendance rates?
What is the current unauthorised absence rate in your provision? Is the U code also being applied to pupils who are late after the register closes? What are the education provision doing to reduce this rate? What early help is in place? What is the impact of their work? Evaluative sentence in report.
Pupils not attending school regularly: all those with attendance between 95% and 90%; checking how the school is addressing these in line with school policy. What early help is in place to improve attendance for these pupils? What is the impact? Note additional vulnerability, eg: disadvantaged, open children’s social work cases.
Persistently absent pupils: all those with attendance below 90%; checking how the school is addressing these in line with legislation and school policy. What is the percentage of PA pupils and how many? What early help work is in place? Engagement with enforcement team? What is the impact of the provision’s work (if any) on working to reduce PA. Note additional vulnerability, eg: disadvantaged, open children’s social work cases.

8. Pupil Groups to be Particularly Mindful of:
SEND
Medical Conditions
Pupils on part time timetables
Gypsy Roma Traveller
Service Children
Looked after pupils
Pupil premium pupils
Child protection concerns
Low attaining pupils
Those attending alternative provision
Pupils at risk of exclusion and excluded pupils
Children who are subject to child in need, child protection and looked after child plans: Are vulnerable pupils not attending school safe?Has the child’s social worker been notified of their absence from school – first day? Has this been logged on the child protection file? Are the school confident that the social worker has acted on their concern? Are the school confident that the child is safe? If not have they raised this through professional dispute resolution procedures? Is this all recorded and timely with no drift or delay?
Pupils in alternative provision: What are your procedures for checking that all those in alternative provision attend? How are you notified/do you check on a daily basis? Are you confident that they remain for all of the sessions? How do you know? How is alternative provision helping to improve pupil’s behaviour, learning and attendance? (impact)
Exclusion: School’s use of exclusion, including the rates, patterns and reasons for exclusion, as well as any differences between groups of pupils. current rate of exclusions/number of pupils. School policy on exclusions followed? Have the school done all they can to support the pupil and sought support from other agencies? What has been the impact of fixed term exclusions on pupil behaviour?
Disadvantaged: What does the attendance profile at your school look like against all pupils nationally? and against peers in school? How effectively is the pupil premium being used to promoted good school attendance for these pupils?
Pupils on part time timetables: Why is the pupil on a part time timetable? How does the school ensure that this is a short term, temporary arrangement, with an aim of resuming full time education at the earliest convenience? How does the school ensure the pupil is safe when not in school? Is the correct register code used for pupils on part time tables?
Note: Part-time timetables
Some compulsory school-age pupils are placed on a part-time table in order to meet their individual needs, for example when a medical condition prevents them from attending full-time, as part of a re-integration package or as part of a flexi-schooling agreement . Part-time timetable should not be treated as a long-term solution. Any pastoral support programme or other agreement must have time limit by which point the pupil is expected to attend full-time and be agreed by with the pupil’s parents/carers.
Compulsory school-age pupils on a part-time timetable are, by definition, not present at school for part of the week or day. They are also not attending approved educational activity and must therefore be absent. In agreeing to the part-time timetable the school has agreed to the absence and must record it as authorised. Schools cannot record the pupil as “not required to attend” or that the school was closed to the pupil in question as this would contravene the regulations.
Doing this will ensure that the school has a record of the amount of education a pupil has missed and help it to identify pupils that might need additional support .
When analysing attendance data schools might wish to consider what attendance levels are if these pupils are removed from the statistics. This will enable them to assess their general level and benchmark that level against similar schools.
Non-compulsory school-age pupils on part-time timetables
Non-compulsory school-age pupils can be recorded as Code X (Untimetabled sessions for non-compulsory school-age pupils) for those sessions they are not expected to attend. By using the other codes to record these pupils’ absence from the sessions they are expected to attend, schools will be able to track whether pupils are missing lessons and, where necessary, provide additional support. It often pays dividends to establish good attendance habits when pupils are under compulsory school-age. The Department does not collect data for non-compulsory school children and such absence will not affect schools’ attendance statistics in the performance tables.

9. Attendance Data Current in school attendance data?
What does the DFE 5 year profile look like for your school? Trend?
What does the Inspection Dashboard say about attendance at your school?
What does Raise Online say about attendance at your school?

10. Punctuality Late before the register closed
Late after the register closed
During the school day – punctuality to lessons
Late before the register closed: has the school got robust procedures in place for recording and following up? Are these recorded on registers with the L code? Select one pupil and check followed through correct procedures. Evaluative sentence in report.
Late after the register closed: does the school have robust procedures in place for recording and following up? Are these recorded on registers with the U code? School actions? Select one pupil and check followed through correct procedures. Evaluative statement in report.
What early help is in place for pupils who are not punctual to school/lesssons? What is the impact of the education provision’s work? Evaluative sentence in report
How often do you check pupil signing out book at reception (morning and afternoon sign outs) – are there valid reasons for pupils leaving school – ensure no unauthorised exclusions, ensure same children not regularly leaving school mid afternoon session, and that reasons for missing education are valid and evidenced.
Check pupils are where they should be in school (ie: in lessons). Random sample 5 pupils who are recorded as present on the school register (including sixth form) - are they where they should be? (are they elsewhere in school? are they off-site?). Be vigilant during visit of any pupils who leave the site or who are not in lessons and ask school leaders why? How vigilant is the provision in this area? Foundation stage – handover points, supervision of pupils, ensuring they are where they should be.
Safeguarding concerns or low level disruption?

11. Five aspects to inspecting safeguarding activity:
Extent to which leaders create a positive culture and ethos where safeguarding is an important part of every day life in the setting
Application and effectiveness of safeguarding policies
Quality of safeguarding practice
Timeliness of response to safeguarding concerns
Quality of work to support multi-agency plans around the child or learner
Is this culture and ethos backed up by training at every level? How are school staff trained on attendance?
Attendance policy- is it rigorously implemented? Is it effective? How do you know? Is it reviewed regularly?
What is the quality of practice around promoting good attendance for all pupils, and acting when it is not good? How do you know? What evidence do you have?
How quickly do staff and leaders respond to non-attendance? How timely and effective is the response? When a safeguarding concern? Within an hour? Child protection policy and procedures implemented and DSL notified?
Are clear action plans in place for pupils that do not attend school regularly? Are these followed through? Evidence of impact and improvement in the experience of the child? Drift and delay? How swiftly do leaders respond if there is drift/delay/decline in the situation? What is done about it? What is the impact? Is this evidenced?

12. Policy
Policy updated
Includes CMFE pathway
KCSIE (July 2015)

13. Absences: Are absences followed up?
What about pupils who have stopped attending the setting?
Monitoring of children who go missing during the school day?
Engagement of other agencies?
School policies and procedures/statutory requirements (clearly outlined in CMFE pathway)
Leaders should know where pupils have gone when taking them off roll. They should be able to provide sufficient detail about where pupils have gone and find this information
Children going missing during the day is an indicator of child sexual exploitation. Are they missing in school/off site? How do you know and what are you doing about it? How have your acted, recorded, monitored?
Other agencies … police, local authority social care, Child Missing Education Officer
Clarity on terms children missing from education, children missing education and child missing.
Note: The issues that schools should take into account when considering a request for leave of absence include:
the amount of time requested; age of the pupil; the pupil’s general absence/attendance record; proximity of SATs and public examinations; length of the proposed leave; pupil’s ability to catch up the work; pupil’s educational needs; general welfare of the pupil; circumstances of the request; purpose of the leave; frequency of the activity; and when the request was made.
Note: Time off school for family holidays is not a right. Schools have discretion to allow up to 10 days absence in a school year for a family holiday if they believe that the circumstances warrant it. Schools may agree up to 10 days “holiday leave” in special circumstances such as:for service personnel and other employees who are prevented from taking holidays outside term-time if the holiday will have minimal disruption to the pupil’s education; and
when a family needs to spend time together to support each other during or after a crisis. Holidays which are taken for the following reasons should not be authorised:
availability of cheap holidays; availability of the desired accommodation; poor weather experienced in school holiday periods; and
overlap with beginning or end of term. Whilst the application must be made by the parent(s) that the child normally resides with, there is no restriction on who the holiday is taken with. This is a matter for the parent(s) not the school. If the local code of practice allows, parents can be given a penalty notice or prosecuted for periods of unauthorised holidays. In exceptional circumstances, schools can approve more than 10 days holiday leave - called extended leave of absence or extended holidays. However, it is worth discussing with parents whether their plans could be changed to overlap with school holidays and thereby reduce the effect on their child’s education.

14. Thresholds Solihull MBC thresholds (4 thresholds)
Appendix of main document exemplar material
Attendance through the thresholds
Scenario 1:
Child has been off for two days with flu. First time in three years at the school that hasn’t attended.
Scenario 2:
Year 7 pupil arrives at school and informs his teacher during his Mathematics lesson that he hasn’t done his homework because his sister in Year 10 at the school has gone missing from home, and things aren’t good at the moment at home.
Scenario 3:
Parent advises that the family will be travelling to Egypt for three weeks in term time due to a family bereavement and requests leave.
Scenario 4:
Child has not attended a full day in the two years he has been at the junior school. Mum says there is an underlying health issue, however has not brought forward any evidence.
Scenario 5:
Science teacher in secondary school informs assessment lead and head of house that the reason pupil x has not done well this term, and is unlikely to achieve the predicted GCSE grade because she has not been attending the Wednesday afternoon practical sessions in Science this term. The teacher notes a decline in her interest in school, and notes she is tired during the other morning science lessons and is regularly reprimanded for using her phone during the school day. The pupil was a model A* pupil up until now.

15. ESCOS Service
Input from Anita Oakley

16. Early Help is Everyone’s Business
Engage
Vicki Spall
Collaborative Lead
Direct Work Team

17. Early Help is Everyone’s Business
Engage - SMBC
3 teams
3 areas of work
5 collaboratives

18. Engage Team 4 key components
Community Development
Direct Work
Community Capacity
Business Unit
Support and deliver specialist solution focused work
Skilling up families in communities to support themselves
Providing data, analysis and performance management
Developing high quality universal groups for all

19. Direct Work
Deliver a range of time limited, evidenced based interventions
Team of Family Workers and Children and Young Peoples Workers – 33 FTE
Compliment the work of partners as part of a wider Early Help Engagement Plan (formally CAF)
Examples of work – Parenting Support – Behaviour, Routines, play opportunities in the home. Work with young people around self esteem, anger management and post 16 options.
CSE Team – direct work with young people identified as at risk of CSE through a national Risk Assessment Tool
YISP Team – Crime and ASB prevention work with young people – age 8 upwards.

20. Request for Direct Work Support
Allocations Process
Entry Point Form
Duty Team to gather information
Duty Team decision as to whether goes to allocations
Weekly allocations meeting – decide work to be carried out and case worker
1st October to 30th April requests
Allocated cases - 474
322 cases currently open to our team
Cases by Collaborative – 45% Unity, 18% Evolve, 16% Mosaic, 11% Synergy, 10% Rural
17% requests from schools, 25% CSWS step down, 12% Health

21. Attendance Education Welfare Causes not symptoms
Attendance can be presenting issue
Wraparound support
Engagement Coordinators
Engagement Plan
Identified Direct Work

22. Solihull Early Help in practice
Support for children, young people and families
Handbook
Early Help
Family Engagement
Process
Plan
Training

23. Case Study Request for support from Parent – Jan 16 Lauren
15 years old – year 11
48% Attendance
Anxiety, low self esteem
Sleeping difficulties
Refusal to attend GP appointment
Young carer for brother
Older brother – mental health condition
Parent struggling
Not accessing other activities Inc. young carers

24. Case Study Engagement Plan – School with support from Engage
Direct Worker identified
School to support anxiety in classroom and strategies
School nurse involvement re sleep
School to support with work experience
Direct Work support around self esteem and confidence
Direct Work support for revision timetable and structure
Direct Work to support outside activities – link to young carers
Direct Work referral to UYCB course
Direct Work parenting support re behaviour strategies
Direct Work link work 16+ team for sibling

25. Thank You Any Questions

26. Early Help is Everyone’s Business What are you doing to help early?
#soliearlyhelp

27. Attendance and Child Sexual Exploitation (CSE)
Bev Petch
Senior Education Improvement Adviser

28. Child Sexual Exploitation (CSE)
Child sexual exploitation is a form of sexual abuse in which a child or young person is manipulated or forced into taking part in a sexual act. This could be as part of a seemingly consensual relationship, or in return for attention, affection, money, drugs, alcohol or somewhere to stay.
The young person may think that their abuser is their friend, or even their boyfriend or girlfriend. But they will put them into dangerous situations, forcing the young person to do things they don’t want to do. This is abuse. The abuser may physically or verbally threaten the young person, or be violent towards them. They will control and manipulate them, and try to isolate them from friends and family.
Essentially child sexual exploitation involves children receiving something e.g. drugs, accommodation, gifts in exchange for performing sexual activities. It can occur without physical contact – children can be groomed to post sexual images of themselves on the internet.  These are exploitative relationships where perpetrators have power over victim e.g. age, peer pressure, strength.
Broad categories:
Inappropriate relationships
Boyfriend model of exploitation
Organised sexual exploitation/trafficking
Peer on peer
We also know that CSE is prevalent in gangs.
Education have two key roles:
Preventing CSE by educating children and young people about healthy, safe relationships, positive sexual health, assessing risk and accessing help and support.
Protecting children and young people by looking for and spotting the signs – because they are unlikely to disclose.
It is important that any concerns that a child or young person may be at risk of or experiencing CSE are brought to the attention of the DSL immediately.
The Solihull CSE pathway is provided in the delegate handbook (pages 22-26).
Bev and Hannah are doing a specific workshop on CSE today.

29. 10 key facts about child sexual exploitation http://www. beds. ac
CSE and Me :

30. Links with absence and missing
The link between Child Sexual Exploitation (CSE) and children and young people going missing is inextricable since going missing can be both a cause and a consequence of being sexually exploited.’ (National Working Group website)

31. ‘Running away or going missing is a key early indicator of child sexual exploitation. Recent research has found that many as 70% of children who are sexually exploited go missing. Some young people go missing as a consequence of sexual exploitation. Others are at risk of being targeted by perpetrators who groom them for sexual exploitation.’
(Children’s Society, citing research from the 2012 ‘Office of the Children’s Commissioner Inquiry’)

32. What can schools do? Prevention and protection
Closely monitor attendance and take action where necessary.
Poor attendance at school or sudden changes in attendance patterns or levels can be an early indication of child sexual exploitation or other problems within the family home.

33. Questions
Do all staff in your school understand the safeguarding links between absence and CSE?
How vigilant are all staff?
What systems do you have in place if a child does not arrive at school?
Are these robust and consistently adhered to? How do you know?

34. Questions
How are patterns of absence for individuals monitored and analysed?
How would you know if a child went missing from school during the day or from particular lessons?
Would all staff know how to respond?
Who would rule in the potential risk of CSE?

35. Please see the Solihull’s health and wellbeing website’s CSE pages:
You will be able to access a range of information and resources including Solihull’s updated ‘Healthy and Safe Relationships’ resource (age 12+) and the new ‘Happy and Safe Relationships’ resource (age 7-9).

36. Radicalisation and Extremism
Radicalisation refers to the process by which a person comes to support terrorism and forms of extremism. There is no single way of identifying an individual who is likely to be susceptible to an extremist ideology. It can happen in many different ways and settings. Specific background factors may contribute to vulnerability which are often combined with specific influences such as family, friends or online, and with specific needs for which an extremist or terrorist group may appear to provide an answer. The internet and the use of social media in particular has become a major factor in the radicalisation of young people.
Extremism is vocal or active opposition to fundamental British values, including democracy, the rule of law, individual liberty and mutual respect and tolerance of different faiths and beliefs. This also includes calls for the death of members of the British armed forces, whether in this country or overseas.
Bev Petch
All staff in this provision (and governors) have received WRAP3 training delivered by the Home Office trained WRAP3 trainer in this provision. School lead may want to do a brief input on what to do if a concern and any local issues.
All staff should know who to go to if they have a concern that a child or adult in the setting is at risk of or has been radicalised / is demonstrating extremist behaviour / a concern raised in the community – eg graffiti, unusual use of premises, etc.
The Solihull pathway on preventing radicalisation and extremism is in your delegate pack (pages 30-37) and is in the revised local authority model education child protection policy.

37. Children Missing from Education
Input from Natalie Jones

38. Exclusions
Schools must follow the statutory guidance on exclusions when removing a pupil as a disciplinary penalty. They cannot send pupils home or to off-site provision for disciplinary reasons without following exclusions guidance.

39. Enforcement Team
Input from Bernie Herdman

40. Religious Observance
Schools must treat absence as authorised when it is due to religious observance.
The day must be exclusively set apart for religious observance by the religious body to which the parents belong (by the religious body, not the parents).
Where necessary, schools should seek advice from the parents’ religious body about whether it has set the day apart for religious observance. 
School and local authorities may seek to minimise the adverse effects of religious observance on a pupil’s attendance and attainment by considering approaches such as:
local authorities setting term dates around the major religious festivals;
schools closing on religious festivals (whilst ensuring they are open for 380 sessions over the year);
working with local faith groups to develop guidance on absence for religious observance;
schools taking INSET days that coincide with religious festivals; and
individual support for pupils who miss sessions.

41. Plenary Clear attendance policy and procedures Check they work
Evaluate the impact of the school’s work to improve attendance
Be clear about what we mean by ‘missing’ and act appropriately and in a timely manner