Overview
The School Attendance Support Team is a team of experienced and highly professional officers providing the highest quality service to families, schools and other agencies in respect of school attendance matters.
The service provides expert advice and guidance on the promotion of good attendance and the management of any emerging attendance concerns.;
In addition to our core statutory offer, the School Attendance support team provides a traded offer that delivers school-led work on behalf of the school. Namely school focused prevention, early help and support, pre statutory interventions and management and policy support.
What's included?
We will work across four key areas in accordance with Hackney’s strategic plan for improving attendance. This includes, school focused prevention, early help and support, pre statutory interventions and management and policy support.
Our reduced secondary school offer, can include all aspects of school-led work, however it is time bound and our officers will deliver approximately 3 days of work across each half term. Priorities for each school will be set in a planning meeting (either in September or before).
School focused prevention
Provides specialist support and expertise acting on behalf of the school to fulfil their day to day expectations. This includes, home visits, late gates, parent drop ins or attendance surgeries, attendance reward and recognition systems, analysing the school's data and referrals to other services, including early help assessments.
Early help and support
Casework on behalf of the school. Delivering intensive attendance work with individual pupils and families that is expected of the school (rather than of the LA). This includes, setting up and leading attendance meetings with families, developing in school reasonable adjustments and initial attendance action plans.
Statutory intervention
School led pre-enforcement casework, including FPN warnings, collating documents and compiling witness statements, pre-statutory intensive casework, including evidenced interventions and review plans, at the end of which either good attendance will have resumed or this information will be used to support a submission to court.
Management support
Work with schools to support development of new systems, policies and processes. One off or ongoing training delivered to school staff on attendance. This could include, professional supervision of school attendance staff, intensive work to develop a whole school strategy/policy, support with developing day to day processes and register audits.