Attendance
Please report lateness and absence ASAP (phones open from 8.00am) to Robert Cochrane or Jade McCann (core pupils), or Callan Glean (intensive support); full details can be found on our contact page, or attendance policy below.
Apex Specialist Education is proudly recognised as an Inclusive Attendance school. Our unwavering commitment to attendance centres around child-centric actions, evidence-informed practices, and a shared understanding of everyone's roles and collective responsibilities to promote exceptional attendance.
Inclusive Attendance Professional Development Model
The Inclusive Attendance professional development model fundamentally guides our attendance approach. Comprising six tailored Learning Modules, this model empowers us to deepen our understanding by facilitating continuous professional learning for all staff. Within this model, the four domains of practice ensure the provision of professional learning, professional development, evidence-based practices, and exemplary leadership and management to seamlessly integrate theory into practice.
A Multi-Tiered System of Support
To guarantee a comprehensive approach to attendance, Apex Specialist Education implement a Multi-Tiered System of Support. A Multi-Tiered System of Support (MTSS) for school attendance involves three tiers of intervention, with roles for teachers, the school, children, parents, and external agencies – including the Local Authority. Data-driven decision-making and training requirements are pivotal to the implementation of this system. The system aligns with the Department for Education's (DFE) "Working Together to Improve School Attendance" statutory paper 2024.
Tier 1 - Universal Approach: Establishing a baseline universal attendance approach that benefits all children.
Tier 2 – Internal individualised Strategies and Early Help Support: Tailoring strategies to individual needs and providing early help support for persistent attendance challenges.
Tier 3 - Higher Needs Strategies Support: Furnishing specialised support for children, young people, and families with complex attendance requirements, including access to external agency support when necessary.
Our attendance philosophy is rooted in a recognition-based approach that recognises both personal and collective achievements. This approach serves to thwart isolation, prevent victimisation, cultivate positive environments, nurture relationships, foster inclusivity, and ultimately cultivate intrinsic motivation among our children, families, and staff.
Personalised Recognition: The majority of pupils admitted to our school, have usually been long term non-attenders, school avoiders, or at the very least had substantial disruption to schooling. Achieving perfect attendance overnight is not realistic, and can be demoralising for some children. Therefore, we scrutinise starting points and historic attendance; ensuring that our targets are always to best previous figures.
Whilst we are working to get all pupils above 90%, we also recognise personal milestones; if a pupil was on 0% for 12 months and has achieved 65% with us, then this is a massive step in the right direction.
We have regular check-ins with pupils to acknowledge their attendance, discuss their progress, and set personal goals; this can be highly motivating. We adopt a Key Worker session to implement this strategy; this can be particularly effective for children who do not respond well to public recognition.
We report on attendance each half-term to parents (in addition to regular intervention), and through our review process we provide opportunities to celebrate and discuss attendance.
Each half-term the Headteacher awards a certificate and voucher to a pupil who has shown considerable improvement in their attendance; we have a dedicated display for this which remains in place until the next half-term’s awards.
School Recognition: Our Governing Body will hold our school to account for attendance; this is considered a key performance indicator and something which is part of our everyday focus.
Attendance is not measured via traditional national benchmarks; as this would be counter-productive, given the school’s makeup. Therefore, in year 1 (24-25) attendance is measured against sector specific averages, on a local (borough specific), and national level, utilising the most recently available statistics, for comparison and analysis. We recognise positives as attendance which is higher than comparatives. Additionally, from year 2 we will compare annual attendance comparisons, alongside sector wide sources.
In weekly SLT meetings (chaired by the CEO), attendance for each individual pupil is discussed and scrutinised; daily briefing documents feed into this.
Half-termly governance meetings review whole school attendance, and there is a detailed attendance report presented to the board for scrutiny at each meeting.