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Attendance & Persistent Absence · £5.99

Every Day Counts,
Confident Schools

School attendance strategies for secondary schools (PDF)

Written to the July 2026 statutory guidance: how a secondary school finds the children who are slipping, understands why, and gets them back, before absence becomes a safeguarding matter.

£5.99The whole playbook, 61 pages

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  1. 1 Expect
  2. 2 Notice
  3. 3 Understand
  4. 4 Support
  5. 5 Escalate
Cover of Every Day Counts, Confident Schools

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Persistent absence is rarely a single decision. It is a slope, and the children on it are usually visible in the data weeks before anyone acts.

This booklet is about noticing earlier and responding better: what the statutory guidance now requires, what the registers are actually telling you, and what to do at each stage before absence becomes a safeguarding matter.

Written to
DfE July 2026 statutory guidance & the Ofsted inspection toolkit
Intended for
classroom practice, staff INSET and SLT policy review
Extent
61 pages · 56 sections

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Contents

All 56 sections

Taken from the book’s own contents page, so the page numbers are the real ones.

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

— The Five Daily Non-Negotiables p3
— The Architecture, at a Glance p4

THE CASE

01 Foreword — Absence Is Not an Admin Problem p5
02 The National Picture: What the Data Shows p6
03 Where Absence Actually Comes From p7
04 The Legal Framework: What You Must Do p8
05 What Ofsted Actually Looks For p9

THE THEORY

06 Part I — Why Children Stop Coming p10
07 Part II — Anxiety, Avoidance & the Return Curve p11
08 Part III — Belonging & the School That Notices p12

THE PRACTICE

09 The Five-Pillar Architecture, at a Glance p13
10 Pillar 1 — Expect p14
11 Pillar 2 — Notice p15
12 Pillar 3 — Understand p16
13 Pillar 4 — Support p17
14 Pillar 5 — Escalate p18
15 The First Day of Absence p19
16 The Scripts: What to Say to Families p20
17 The Return — Reintegration That Holds p21
18 Emotionally Based School Avoidance p22
19 When Absence Becomes a Safeguarding Concern p23
20 The 90% Trap and Other Data Illusions p24
21 Attendance, SEND & Medical Needs p25
22 Myths vs Facts p26
23 Penalty Notices & Legal Intervention p27
24 The Ten Most Common Mistakes p28
25 Attendance in Practice — Scenarios I p29
26 Attendance in Practice — Scenarios II p30

FOR LEADERS

27 Implementation Roadmap — the full year p31
28 The 30–60–90 Day Launch Plan p32
29 Measuring What Actually Changed p33
30 Working With Parents Without Losing Them p34
31 Make This Your School’s Own Policy p35
32 Questions Leaders Actually Ask p36
33 Twelve Questions to Sit With p37

THE TOOLKIT — PRINT & USE

34 Template 1 — Weekly Attendance Triage p38
35 Template 2 — Barriers Conversation Record p39
36 Template 3 — Reintegration Plan p40
37 The Lanyard Cheat Sheet p41
38 The 45-Minute INSET Workshop p42
39 Staffroom Poster — One-Page Summary p43
40 SLT Self-Audit Checklist p44

CLOSING

41 In Closing — The Child Who Isn’t There p45
42 References and Evidence Base p46

THE UAE CHAPTER — A STANDALONE SECTION

43 The Framework You Actually Work Inside p47
44 The 5% Rule — Abu Dhabi’s Cause for Concern p48
45 Illness, Certification & Term-Time Leave p49
46 Dubai, and the Other Emirates p50
47 Attendance in a Transient Cohort p51
48 What a UAE Inspector Looks For p52
49 Making It Survive the Summer p53

THE SYSTEM, DRAWN

50 The Six Stages, in the Order the Guidance Sets Them p54
51 Persistent, Severe, and the Gap Between Them p55

FOR TEACHERS

52 The Teacher’s Attendance Page p56

FOR LEADERS — CONTINUED

53 What Good Attendance Practice Looks Like p57

THE TOOLKIT — CONTINUED

54 Two Attendance Tools Worth Printing p58
55 Thirty, Sixty, Ninety Days p59
56 The Evidence Base p60
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Your download is ready straight after payment. Downloading it ends the 14-day right to cancel; a file that is faulty or not as described is always refunded. Refunds