How is school attendance being recorded?

You must be very bored to ask that question

I've just checked SIMs. Ours have been marked B, educated off-site. We went back last Tuesday so have had a week of this before Easter and 4 days since.

Key-worker children are signed in manually at the start of each session at reception and a list emailed to staff on the rota that day. We are not teaching them anything, more supervising them as all their work is set online so they are being treated the same as those with non-key worker parents.

With regards to attendance codes before schools closed; if your child was ill themselves it was the usual I code. If they were self-isolating due to a family member unwell it was a Y code (unable to attend due to exceptional circumstances). Anyone who chose to keep their child at home before schools closed, and they weren't ill and a family member wasn't ill, would have been marked as an O code for unauthorised absence.

@fourpeasinapod

That's just for the foreseeable future in a week by week basis.

No parents really need to worry about this at the moment tho. Schools are closed - shouldn't matter to the general public what codes go in the register.

Attendance recording is hugely important at the moment. There is huge man power going into this. We need to know who is in, who is not, and whether the vulnerable children who are currently entitled to attend are doing so - then this has to be fed back to social care for their assessment of whether this is safe or not. For some children it really won't be safe not to be in school at the moment.

Schools have been told to update their SIMS as if the school is closed. That was until a particular date - can't remember off-hand but I'm expecting an update to come through from DfE when the holidays are over. So no one is expected to be in and attendance is not being tracked, or marked as anything at all as schools are closed.

Attendance for Key Worker children is registered in numbers only with a form on the DfE website filled out by schools - to enable the government to have an idea of how many children attending. Schools will hold their own internal registers checking who is on site/off site on a daily basis but that is for safeguarding not attendance.

The %attendance will be the number of sessions attended in comparison to the number of sessions school is open.
This is usually 312 session per school year (if I recall correctly) but will obviously be much less this year because of school closures.
E.g. If schools remain closed for a further 30 days, assuming they were closed for a week before the easter break, that would equate to 70 fewer sessions so a total of 242 session for the year.

Children at hub schools in the first 2 weeks were mostly completing work set by their own class teachers, as well as some more 'holiday club' type activities. This has been even more relaxed over the Easter hols. Children are attending for childcare essentially, not for education. There was a mix of nursery/primary/secondary teachers & support staff at our local hub - lots of fun, busy activities.

Seriously, what kind of a question is that, who actually cares?? What difference does it make, bizarre.

No, I’m not unaware. Just saying that even if a child attends school at this stage voluntarily, why is there a need to even bother marking them as present cause surely attendance at this stage is irrelevant

It’s not about attendance fgs, they need to know who is in the building.

I'm a depute head in Scotland. All children are marked on the central register system as school closure days. This has been done for the next three weeks - will await the next announce before it is changed (if needed) for week 4 & beyond.
Key workers/vulnerable children attending hub schools are registered as attending for health and safety - this will not show up as greater attendance on end of year reports than those pupils who are at home.

Guidance for schools:

www.gov.uk/government/publications/coronavirus-covid-19-attendance-recording-for-educational-settings/educational-settings-self-reporting-online-form-frequently-asked-questions-faq

I would imagine for safeguarding, fire regulations, and security it's important to register the children (and have a note of staff) who were physically present in the school.

It's just not key worker children during normal school days it also includes vulnerable children.

I assume they will be doing the same work that is being sent to their classmates that are at home

Our GoForSchools for one child says Y - child can't attend due to exceptional circumstances and other child says partial or whole school closure as code. Not sure why they have different codes, one is SN (code Y) but neither offered a place.

Why wouldn’t we register the keyworkers children? What if we lost one on the way back PE? In fact I’d say it’s more important not less.

Generally know who is in your class and how many there should be and how many there are. The staff are the same week in week out. Now you have different numbers every day expected and attending, some of whom you’ve never seen in your life!

II’m surprised they are even bothering to mark key workers children in if they attend.

It’s strange that it’s necessary to record attendance at this point

Surely you are not really that unaware?

Marked as educated off site I would imagine ... not sure anyone is actually bothering

We were self isolating the week before lockdown, when I advised of DDs absence using the school app, i put self isolating. The school app was updated to mark her attendance with O, the same code as for inset days. Usually if she's absent it's marked with X.