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Attendance and Children Missing Education

Information and resources to help education settings and professionals improve attendance and reduce numbers of those students missing education.

Introduction

All children should go to school every day unless there is an unavoidable reason like illness. If attendance concerns are raised, it's important for education providers to take a safeguarding approach to ensure appropriate support and early intervention is provided for children and their families. 

This section provides information for education settings regarding attendance and children missing education. Children missing education (CME) are children of compulsory school age who are not registered on a school roll or receiving a suitable education elsewhere. Education settings must take action to notify the local authority if they become aware of any children who fit these criteria. 

Education settings who have statutory school aged learners must have regard to:

  • School attendance: guidance for schools - this covers registers and attendance codes (including circumstances relating to coronavirus (COVID-19)), school hours and term dates, and improving school attendance.
  • Improving school attendance: support for schools and local authorities - this document gives guidance to schools and local authorities to support them to improve school attendance. The first part of this document sets out the principles underpinning an effective whole school strategy for attendance. The second part outlines actions that school staff and local authorities may consider taking to improve attendance for all pupils, pupils at risk of persistent absence and pupils who are persistently absent (PA).

Bristol Attendance Toolkit

The toolkit is for professionals to use to access key resources and information for attendance related activity.

Attendance Toolkit - Home (sharepoint.com)

Access to the site is via the supply of a named email for an individual as opposed to a departmental or general email. If you are on the Attendance or Bristol Inclusion Panel mailing lists you should be set up already. For other colleagues please email the attendanceandbelongingteam@bristol.gov.uk to request access, providing your email details. 

If you have any problems accessing the site or require any further information please contact either lesley.o’hagan@bristol.gov.uk or helen.starr@bristol.gov.uk.

Getting support locally

To keep up-to-date, and for more information around what you need to do locally, please see:

Weekly Attendance Updates 

National resources