Attendance Officer

PURPOSE OF THE JOB 

• To contribute to raising achievement by improving school attendance;
• To provide a specialist service to assist the school in meeting their obligations and targets in relation to school attendance, especially persistent absence;
• To promote positive attitudes to students and families towards education and to ensure that parents are made fully aware of their statutory responsibilities;
• To make unsupervised contact with families in their own homes and elsewhere to assess the reasons impacting on the attendance of individual students, facilitating their return or access to regular full time education provision; and
• To establish and develop a professional service to support the school in raising attendance, investigating persistent absences and improving punctuality. 

MAIN DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES

• To advise the school on strategies to promote the regular and punctual attendance of all students and assist with the implementation of the strategies;
• To meet regularly with the Deputy Head Teacher to discuss academic performance of students and impact of attendance;
• Meet with school staff, students and parents to identify individual problems and possible solutions;
• To make unsupervised contact with families in response to allocated referrals i.e. home visits and /or meetings in school;
• To establish the reason for non-attendance, make assessments and agree a plan for facilitating a return to school using appropriate strategies within specified timescales;
• To initiate appropriate legal action with Education Welfare Service (EWS) to ensure the school is carrying out its statutory responsibility in respect of students. This will include preparing statements, attending and presenting evidence or request the issuing of penalty notice fines or other legal sanctions and completion of Strengthening Family Referrals;
• To be fully aware of and carry out all work in line with Child Protection Procedures. This may involve attending case conferences, strategy and planning meetings as well as core groups or other meetings in relation to child protection cases that require input;
• To liaise and work with other members of EWS as well as other professionals in police, Social Services, Housing , Health and any other statutory and voluntary organisations;
• To keep clear and concise records of all consultations and to write any other reports i.e. annual action plan and summaries, as required for the school;
• To use IT systems to produce reports, often to tight timescales, using word processing and record information including statistical data, providing reports to senior managers and other professionals;
• To manage and prioritise your own workload in line with service requirements;
• To acquire and maintain a working knowledge of the statutory framework relating to school attendance, child employment, child protection and special needs in order to be able to offer informed advice to parents, school staff, governors and others;
• To support Pastoral Managers and Senior Leaders in advising the school on all matters relating to attendance and where necessary take the lead role in developing work processes to improve school attendance;
• To work on initiatives which raise the awareness of school staff, parents and the community on the importance of school attendance;
• To report to Governors and Directors on a half termly basis; and 
• To engage in other projects/tasks (appropriate to the pay-scale) which allow you to fully utilise your specific strengths and skillset. 

GENERAL REQUIREMENTS 

• Adaptable, imaginative, creative and flexible in approach to the work;
• Self-motivating and the ability to identify your own training needs and a willingness to attend relevant training courses or other training;
• Prepared to attend meetings outside of office hours;
• Promote and safeguard the welfare of children, young and vulnerable people that you are responsible for or come into contact with;
• To comply with individual responsibilities, in accordance with the role, for health and safety in the workplace;
• Ensure that all duties and services provided are in accordance with the School’s Equal Opportunities Policy;
• The Governing Body is committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children and young people and expects all staff and volunteers to share in this commitment; and
• To ensure compliance of Data Protection at all times.

The duties above are neither exclusive nor exhaustive and the post holder may be required by the Headteacher to carry out appropriate duties within the context of the job, skills and grade. 

The Trust is committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children and expects all staff and volunteers to share this commitment. Successful applicants will be required to obtain an Enhanced check for Regulated Activity from the Disclosure and Barring Service.