Role of the senior attendance champion

Understand the expectation to have a senior attendance champion. Get to grips with their responsibilities and find resources to share with them.

Last reviewed on 9 August 2024
School types: AllSchool phases: AllRef: 49757
Contents
  1. You're expected to designate a senior attendance champion
  2. Understand their responsibilities
  3. It's not the same as an attendance officer

You're expected to designate a senior attendance champion

This is explained in paragraph 25 of the DfE’s statutory guidance on working together to improve school attendance.

Attendance is everyone’s responsibility. This is explained in paragraph 15 of the attendance guidance. However, the guidance also explains that improving attendance is a school leadership issue.

Choose a member of your senior leadership team (SLT) to have overall responsibility for championing and improving attendance, and include their name and contact details in your attendance policy.

See paragraph 26 of the attendance guidance.

Understand their responsibilities

Leading, championing and improving attendance across the school Setting a clear vision for improving and maintaining good attendance Evaluating and monitoring expectations and processes Having a strong grasp of absence data and oversight of absence data analysis Regularly monitoring and evaluating progress in attendance Establishing and maintaining effective systems for tackling absence, and making sure they