The Inclusion and Learning Team at Devon County Council aims to ensure that every child can access education in a safe environment. The responsibility for tackling attendance is everyone’s responsibility however, the DfE have set out clear roles for schools, the LA and parents. The school’s responsibility is set out in Section 2 of Working together to improve school attendance (publishing.service.gov.uk).
All Devon schools will have a named Inclusion Partner allocated to a school or setting in each local learning community (LLC).
Core offer to schools
Under the guidance Working together to improve school attendance (publishing.service.gov.uk), the role of Devon County Council is to offer a package of support, guidance, and statutory functions to all schools in the county. While each council shapes its own model, the recent statutory guidance in England sets out a clear minimum expectation for what every school should receive.
Core elements offered to all schools in Devon
These are the consistent features described across local authority offers and national guidance.
Communication, guidance and a named contact
- Regular updates on attendance expectations, best practice, and policy changes, including half termly invitation to all schools to join the Devon Attendance Network.
- A named point of contact through the Inclusion and Learning Team for every school, available for advice, queries and, where necessary, to broker support.
- Opportunities for schools to share best practice and collaborate through countywide events including the Devon Attendance Network.
Targeted Support Meetings (TSMs)
- Termly meetings with each school to review attendance data.
- Identification of pupils or groups at risk of persistent absence.
- Agreement on targeted actions and access to wider services.
Statutory duties and legal intervention
- Support with fulfilling statutory responsibilities under the Education Act 1996.
- Use of legal powers (for example, penalty notices, prosecution) where appropriate, and as a last resort.
Support aligned with DfE guidance
- Offers are designed to comply with Working together to improve school attendance, which outlines duties for both schools and local authorities.
- Local authorities must be able to demonstrate they follow this guidance or justify any deviation.
What this means in practice
Schools can expect
- Early identification of attendance concerns through shared data analysis.
- Clear escalation pathways, from early help to statutory action.
- Support for vulnerable groups, including pupils with SEND, medical needs, social workers, or those persistently or severely absent.
In addition, Devon Local Authority also offers an additional traded service relating to a range of statutory aspects of attendance. Currently, due to the ongoing adjustments within the county’s redesign, this service has a series of interim measures, however, from September 2026, we hope to relaunch our traded school attendance service.
Legal intervention
From September 2025, it will be the school’s responsibility to undertake formal meetings, as it is not part of a core function of the local authority. The Named Inclusion Partner will be available to offer support and guidance to school staff where structuring such meetings is an identified training need.
Support from the named Inclusion Partner
- upon agreement between all parties working with the family, take forward attendance legal intervention (using the full range of parental responsibility measures) where voluntary support has not been successful or engaged with
- Inclusion Partners will be available to provide advice and support with the process
- once schools have undertaken and can evidence all formal meetings have been held with the family, the Inclusion Partner will be able to give advice around completing a referral direct to the Penalty Notice team, including:
- Parenting contracts
- Education Supervision Orders
- Building attendance into child in need or child protection plans where relevant
- Issuing fixed penalty notices
- Parenting Orders
- Taking forward prosecutions persistently breaching any Education Supervision Order or Parenting Order in place
the Attendance Improvement Officer (AIO) will:
- support and work with Devon schools on the early identification of emerging patterns of irregular pupil attendance, whilst paying particular attention to supporting our most vulnerable pupils
- work together to agree a joint approach for severely absent pupils (50% and below), this may include specific support with attendance or a whole family plan
- provide ad hoc advice, support and guidance via email or telephone
- arrange a termly targeted support meeting for all secondary schools and large primary schools
- have regular contact with smaller primary schools
- advise the family’s lead practitioner on any attendance elements of a family’s attendance plan
- give advice on legal intervention where all support processes have failed or where there has been non engagement and all parties agree this is the most appropriate course of action
- advise schools about undertaking formal legal escalation meetings (formally fast track).
- work to develop strategic policies and procedures in partnership with schools and other agencies to improve pupil attendance across the county.
This means that the Attendance Improvement Officers will no longer be able to visit schools on a regular basis (unless you have purchased additional time on the shop) to discuss attendance or be able to attend school-based meetings which are arranged to discuss and agree action plans in relation to individual pupil absence. The AIO may attend to offer support to new members of school staff where structuring such meetings is an identified training need.
- Purpose of the meeting
The purpose of this meeting is to work together as equal partners to:
- advise on the requirements for clear and transparent whole school attendance processes, policies and strategies which allow for the early identification of pupils with declining levels of attendance and ensure that supportive interventions are offered to enable pupils to return to regular, full-time attendance at school
- to ensure that all Devon schools and academies have access to the most up-to-date government advice and guidance in respect of coding of absence and attendance reporting requirements (e.g., census returns, attendance returns to the DfE, etc.)
- to share good practice in relation to strategies which may be used to address absence, with a view to minimising the need for schools to require legal intervention (penalty notices/prosecution) via the Education Act 1996
- to encourage schools to take a multi-agency approach to addressing absence and providing a signposting service to inform schools about any services, organisations and/or agencies that may be able to offer support in this aim
- to ensure there are attendance plans in place for all severely absent (less than 50%) pupils. Schools and AIO are expected to have agreed a joint approach for all severely absent pupils
- to scrutinise available data to identify emerging local patterns of positive attendance improvement and ‘hotspots,’ particularly around vulnerable groups, where attendance patterns appear to be declining, using this data to facilitate opportunities for schools to collaborate and network so that school-led improvement relationships may be formed, as appropriate
- to facilitate networking and training opportunities for Attendance Officers, Attendance Leads and Headteachers which seek to promote local and national good practice and allow colleagues to share successful strategies which have enabled them to overcome barriers to regular attendance for their pupils
- be available to provide advice to schools/parents in individual cases, by telephone
- Legal intervention
From September it will be the school’s responsibility to undertake formal meetings as it is not part of a core function of the local authority. The AIO will be available to offer support and guidance to school staff where structuring such meetings is an identified training need.
Legal intervention:
- upon agreement between all parties working with the family, take forward attendance legal intervention (using the full range of parental responsibility measures) where voluntary support has not been successful or engaged with
- AIO will be available to provide advice and support with the process
- once schools have undertaken and can evidence all formal meetings have been held with the family, the AIO will be able to give advice around completing a referral direct to the Penalty Notice team
Including:
- Parenting contracts
- Education Supervision Orders
- Building attendance into child in need or child protection plans where relevant
- Issuing fixed penalty notices
- Parenting Orders
- Taking forward prosecutions persistently breaching any Education Supervision Order or Parenting Order in place