Figures show that in the last academic year, 1 in 5 children were persistently absent from school. The challenge of school attendance looks set to remain high on the agenda for some time yet and school leaders are facing increasing pressures around rates of attendance.
This brand-new eLearning course has been designed to provide new and experienced Attendance Officers with a complete overview of the role, including the current statutory and regulatory framework. You will have full access to the materials to complete over a 12-month period, at your own pace. Throughout the course, you will test your knowledge and understanding with interactive assessments. You’ll also come away with a host of downloadable policies, checklists and examples that you can download and put in place in your school. Each module also comes with a downloadable presentation that you can use for in school training.
Please note: A new module will be added to this course in April 2024 to help prepare you for the changes due to come in force. From August, all content will be updated to reflect the guidance that will be in force from 19th August 2024. Subscribers will have access to all new contents, regardless of when your order is placed.
This online certificate includes:
Videos
Reading materials
Policy and checklist downloads
Assessments
KEY LEARNING OBJECTIVES
By the end of this on demand training course, you will:
Be clear on the role and duties of the attendance officer
Ensure you are up-to-date with the current legislation and guidance surrounding school attendance
Understand the link between safeguarding and attendance in particular for children missing education
Update your knowledge on best practice surrounding coding and registers, including a downloadable at a glace coding chart
Be clear on the removal from roll criteria
Update your whole school approach to attendance, including your school policies and procedures. You’ll also have access to our policy checklist
Improve how you communicate with parents around attendance
Ensure you are taking the correct and most effective action when responding to absences
Be able to download and implement one of our example daily absence processes
Explore the area of persistent and sever absence, to understand the reason behind it so that you can take a plan, do and review approach to improvement
Be able to reenforce your positive approach to attendance across the school
FACILITATOR
Joanne became an “accidental” Education Welfare Officer (EWO) in January 2000 after finding herself in a 3-month contract that has become a 22+ year career.
From 2000 to 2005 Joanne was employed as an EWO and allocated to a range of primary and secondary schools. In 2005 she took on the post of Primary Project Manager, managing a small team of Assistant Education Welfare Officers, in a BIP funded project with a focus to improve attendance using a combination of strategic, casework and preventative project work in a number of Primary Schools. It was at this time seeing the success of this approach that she became further convinced about the importance of a whole school strategic approach to improve attendance (based on a clear understanding of attendance data), coupled with casework undertaken within the legal framework. In 2010 she became Senior Education Welfare Officer and then in 2013 Acting Chief Education Welfare Officer. In both roles the use of attendance data, and upskilling EWOs and School’s in understanding and using attendance data to develop a strategic plan to improve attendance has been a focus. She was involved in delivering the CWDC induction to Education Welfare Officers regionally, and the LDSS NVQ for Education Welfare Officers regionally both as course tutor and assessor and again seized opportunities to promote the use of attendance data in understanding and improving school attendance.
In October 2015 with two partners Joanne established CSAWS (Central School Attendance and Welfare Service ltd). CSAWS is a team of proactive, passionate Education Welfare Officers. They are committed to achieving better outcomes for children by securing regular attendance at school. They understand the reasons behind non-school attendance can be varied and complex. We offer support to schools and settings to identify and improve school attendance including reviewing, refining, and advising on school approaches and processes.
