@Noconceptofnormal
I'm really surprised apparently cash-strapped state schools can afford to employ an 'attendance officer'...? No offence to the individual in this role but surely spending that money on a teacher / TAs would be money better spent?
And why do these cash strapped school spend money on treat days for the lucky healthy kids rather than equipment (or on additional help for the kids in chaotic homes who don't attend school)?
And what is a 'pen licence'?
Dealing with attendance takes a huge amount of time. Time that teachers/form tutors simply don't have. Where does a teacher have time to email and keep calling a parent because their child hasn't appeared in school?
Attendance is also extremely closely linked to SENDCO provision and Safeguarding, as it needs somebody able to pick up patterns not just for one child, but families, friends in different classes, the tone of emails, calls or voicemails, evasive language, the reasons given for absence, the refusal for somebody to engage and give reasons, people contradicting themselves, etc. Are the parents contradicting one another? Is the 'accident' coinciding with the issue of less than stellar test results?
And it needs to be done not just for morning registration, it needs to be done for every lesson in the day, tracking down where else a kid could be legitimately, if they've used a legitimate reason but are taking the piss, are they absent just when a child suspected of using drugs previously happens to have gone to the toilet and not come back for 25 minutes, if there's a risk of self harm or suicidal ideation/intent, etc, etc. Is the kid frequently disappearing from lessons and turning up at medical, behaving strangely or locking themselves in a toilet?
A teacher or a TA is useful to maybe 6 classes in a day and a form group. Somebody working on attendance is useful to all 1800 kids, as they are making sure that each child has arrived in school safely or is, hopefully, safe at home - and could be putting another couple of pieces of a puzzle together to show that they are not safe.
To give potentially emotive examples, Milly Dowler's absence from was not acted upon, so her parents thought she was safe at school. A mother and child have been found to be dead at home only after some days had passed.
Monitoring Attendance more than just waiting for a scribbled note after a week is a fundamental safeguarding responsibility. And that's why it's a real job with real importance, just as a teacher or TA's is.