Education Endowment Foundation:Supporting school attendance

Supporting school attendance

6. Monitor the impact of approaches

Monitoring the effectiveness of an approach will help you understand whether it is being delivered with high quality and success, or whether (and how) it might need to be changed to improve processes and outcomes. To support effective monitoring, you should think about the outcomes you want to achieve and develop an appropriate set of measures. Data collection processes need to fit with school routines and be sustainable for staff to use in a busy working environment. 

1. Track your attendance data

Schools will be using a range of tools and measures to monitor attendance, both for the headline and for more granular details that might otherwise be hidden (for example tracking sibling attendance, and attendance patterns on different days of the week). You may find it helpful to benchmark your attendance against other similar schools, for example by using the DfE’s monitor your school attendance tool.

There is some useful guidance and nuance about monitoring throughout A School’s Guide to Implementation, and particularly on p.31 – 33.

~ Toni Hayzen, Headteacher of Pembroke Park Primary School and Nursery

2. Consider how an approach will be monitored, before you implement it.

Questions to support effective monitoring

  • What information will we gather to monitor and evaluate the impact of approaches?
  • Does the recording and monitoring of information add to anyone’s workload? If so, is this workload reasonable within their role(s)? Is it possible to remove something else to make the time for this new activity?
  • What will be the signals that the approach is being implemented as we intend?
  • What will be the signals that the approach is having the intended impact on pupil attendance?
  • How will we know if problems are emerging with our approach?
  • Is any training or follow-on supported needed for staff beyond initial communication and training?
  • When and how will we respond to implementation data to tailor and improve our approach?

Key guidance report