Wigan Attendance Strategic Plan

Improving attendance is everyone’s business, all of the time. The barriers to accessing education are wide and complex, both within and beyond the school gates, and are often specific to individual pupils and families. 

Understanding the root causes of absence and removing barriers to attendance at home, in school, or more broadly, requires schools and local partners to work collaboratively with families. 

This strategic plan should be read alongside the Excellence in Education and Special Education Needs and Disabilities (SEND) Strategy, and our SEND and Alternative Provision strategic plans, in addition to ‘Working together to improve school attendance'.

This strategic plan has been co-produced with our schools and wider partners. ‘We’ throughout this document is a commitment from all partners that work with and support children and families to work together to deliver on these priorities. By sharing our knowledge, resources and expertise we know we will have greater impact on the outcomes of our children and young people.

  1. Prevention
  2. Identification
  3. Support
  4. Formal Intervention

Prevention

The importance of attendance will be a priority for all partners across Wigan schools and settings, children’s services, and our partners. 

  • All children will be offered a suitable full-time education and will be supported to access it
  • We will understand the causes of absence, particularly for persistent and severe absence
  • All education settings in Wigan will develop and maintain a culture that promotes the benefits of excellent attendance for all pupils
  • All partners will understand their responsibility in relation to attendance and punctuality; and how their systems and processes, advice, guidance, and actions can impact in a positive way
  • We will ensure that the transition process at all stages in a child/young person’s education journey includes a focus on attendance, which prioritises developing a sense of belonging for children
  • The Local Authority’s school improvement strategy will ensure the right support and challenge to improve and sustain attendance
  • We will work with our settings, families, and partners to reduce the number of withdrawals to home education where it is not in the child’s best interest or due to dissatisfaction with the setting
  • Wigan children and their families will understand the importance of good attendance.

Identification

All partners will effectively use data and a range of intelligence to understand the experience of children and families and how this impacts good school attendance.

  • We will rigorously use attendance data to identify patterns of absence as soon as possible at both individual and cohort level
  • All partners will share data and intelligence appropriately and in a timely manner to support improved attendance
  • We will listen to children and their families to understand enablers and barriers to good attendance and effect improvement at an individual, school and system level
  • We will work with senior leaders across Greater Manchester (GM) as part of the GM Local Authority Attendance Alliance to learn from and develop best practice to improve attendance.

Support

All partners will work together to provide intervention to maintain good attendance. This will ensure a holistic approach to supporting the family. A child-centred approach will ensure all partners listen to the voice of the child and their family.

  • Early help is used effectively to remove barriers to poor attendance and help parents/carers to access the support they need
  • There will be effective and responsive early intervention when attendance is affected by mental, physical and emotionally based factors
  • Children’s social care, Family Hubs and early help services will consider attendance at the earliest point as part of a whole family approach
  • Partners will work with children with SEND and their families to remove barriers to their attendance We will continue to develop our range of provision to support attendance including outreach, engagement centres, and alternative provision
  • We will ensure children and families who need access to advocacy services can access them
  • Wigan children who do not attend a Wigan school are proactively supported to attend.

Formal Intervention

Formal planning of support will hold partners and families to account for their actions.

  • Where absence persists and voluntary support is not working, we will formally intervene
  • We ensure all partners understand and know what steps to take in relation to educational neglect in the context of Wigan Safeguarding Partnership’s Threshold of Need Framework 
  • Where a home education offer is unsuitable, we will work with the family to address this.