Attendance & Welfare Service
Improving attendance by understanding what sits behind absence.
Our Attendance & Welfare Service provides schools with specialist, relationship-led support for pupils experiencing barriers to attendance, engagement and participation in education.
We work alongside school leaders, attendance teams, safeguarding staff, pupils and families to understand why a child is not attending, identify the barriers preventing improvement and put the right support in place.
Our service combines attendance monitoring, pupil mentoring, family engagement, home visits, welfare support and targeted interventions to provide a holistic response to attendance concerns.
Our Framework
Theory of Change
Understand the mechanisms through which our Attendance & Welfare Service is designed to create change.
Logic Model
See how our inputs, activities and interventions connect to measurable outputs, outcomes and longer-term impact.
A Different Approach to Attendance
We don't believe attendance can be improved through monitoring absence alone.
Behind persistent absence there can be a range of factors including relationships, behaviour, SEND, emotional wellbeing, family circumstances, school experience, belonging and wider vulnerability.
Our practitioners therefore focus on understanding the individual circumstances of each pupil and building the relationships needed to create change.
Our approach is:
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Trauma-informed – recognising the experiences and circumstances that can affect engagement.
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Restorative – rebuilding relationships and creating positive pathways back into education.
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Relationship-led – building trust with pupils, families and schools.
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Culturally responsive – understanding identity, culture and community when these influence engagement.
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Data-informed – using attendance data to identify patterns, prioritise support and measure progress.
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Needs-led – matching the intervention to the individual barriers a pupil is experiencing.
This reflects current evidence and national guidance, which emphasises understanding individual barriers, building belonging, working positively with families, delivering targeted support and monitoring impact.
What We Offer
Attendance Monitoring & Early Intervention
We work with schools to identify pupils whose attendance is declining or who are at risk of becoming persistently absent. This can include attendance analysis, identifying patterns, attendance reviews, individual action plans and regular monitoring of progress. The aim is to intervene early, before absence becomes entrenched.
Pupil Mentoring
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Our practitioners provide targeted one-to-one support to help pupils understand and overcome barriers to attending school.
Sessions can focus on:
Motivation and engagement
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Confidence and self-esteem
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Emotional regulation
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Relationships and belonging
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Behaviour and decision-making
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School avoidance
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Routines and healthy habits
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Future aspirations
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Reintegration and return to school
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Family Engagement & Home Visits
We work directly with parents and carers to understand concerns, build trust and develop practical solutions.
This can include telephone contact, parent meetings, home visits, family action planning, signposting, referrals and coordinated support with other professionals.
We recognise families as partners in improving attendance, rather than simply recipients of attendance messages. Evidence from the EEF highlights personalised, positive and two-way communication with families as an important part of effective attendance practice.
Targeted Intervention Units
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Schools can also access structured intervention units designed to address some of the underlying factors affecting attendance and engagement.
These include:
Healthy Habits
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Developing routines and understanding how sleep, nutrition, self-care and healthy choices can support successful attendance.
Relationships
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Exploring communication, friendships, conflict, boundaries and positive relationships.
Mental Health & Emotions
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Developing emotional awareness, identifying triggers and building practical coping strategies.
Behaviour & Engagement
Understanding behaviour, identifying triggers and developing strategies for positive engagement.
Post-16 Progression
Building aspirations and helping pupils understand how their current choices connect to future opportunities.
Roma Culture & Heritage
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A culturally responsive intervention exploring identity, heritage, belonging and the relationship between culture and education.
School Readiness & Reintegration
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Supporting pupils to prepare for and successfully return to education following periods of absence, exclusion or disengagement.
Safeguarding & Welfare
Attendance concerns can sometimes be an indicator of wider vulnerability.
Our team works closely with school safeguarding leads and wider professionals where concerns extend beyond attendance. This may include supporting Early Help processes, welfare concerns, family vulnerability, SEND-related barriers, multi-agency meetings and reintegration planning.
We work within the school's existing safeguarding systems, providing additional capacity and direct engagement with pupils and families.
Evidence-Informed Practice
Our service is informed by current attendance research, national guidance and established approaches across education, safeguarding and early intervention.
The evidence tells us there is no single solution to improving attendance. The strongest approach is one that combines an inclusive school culture with personalised, targeted support for pupils experiencing specific barriers. Recent EEF research also highlights the importance of relationships, family engagement, individualised support and embedding attendance work within the wider school system.
We therefore combine data + relationships + family engagement + targeted intervention + professional collaboration.
Measuring Impact
We don't just measure what we do. We measure what changes.
Depending on the school's priorities, we monitor:
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Attendance and persistent absence
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Engagement with intervention
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Pupil progress
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Family engagement
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Home visits and outcomes
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Reintegration
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Behaviour and engagement
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Referrals and wider support
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Pupil, family and school feedback
Our delivery model is supported by a clear Theory of Change and Logic Model, demonstrating how our activities are intended to lead to improved attendance, engagement, wellbeing and longer-term educational outcomes.
Built Around Your School
Our service can be commissioned as additional attendance capacity, targeted support for identified pupils, or as part of a wider school or trust attendance strategy.
We work as an extension of your team — connecting attendance, pastoral, safeguarding, families and wider services around the needs of the child.
We don't simply manage absence. We understand it, address the barriers behind it and help pupils return, remain and thrive in education.