Guidance published on daily school attendance data

The Department for Education has published guidance on how schools can share daily attendance data and access attendance reports.

1. Who should send us data
2. What data we need
3. How to send us your attendance data
4. How this data will be used (including DPIA)
5. Accessing your school attendance reports

We’re trialling getting automatic daily attendance data from schools. Getting daily attendance data will:

• give schools, local authorities and multi-academy trusts (MATs) access to more up-to-date pupil level attendance data
• help you meet the new expectations set out in working together to improve school attendance
• not add to your school’s workload

Schools should use the reports to help improve school attendance by identifying trends and pupils that need support, and sharing attendance data with your board, governing body and local authority.

Who should send us data

Sending daily attendance data is voluntary for schools.

This includes:

• maintained nurseries
• primary schools
• middle-deemed primary schools
• middle-deemed secondary schools
• secondary schools
• all-through schools
• special schools (including non-maintained special schools)
• pupil referral units
• alternative provision
• academies (including free schools, university technical colleges (UTCs) and studio schools)
• city technology colleges (CTCs)

What data we need

We collect the following data items:

• forename
• surname
• unique pupil number
• gender
• ethnicity
• child looked after
• child previously looked after
• SEN support
• education health and care plan
• free school meals
• national curriculum year group
• school URN
• local authority code

We’re requesting each of these data items for:

• pupils in reception
• all statutory school age pupils
• years 12 and 13 (if this is recorded in your management information systems)

We’re not collecting information that is recorded in the comments fields in your management information systems.

The data will be refreshed for codes changed within 7 days of registration.

How to send us your attendance data

1. The data will be collected by a company called Wonde. For schools that already work with Wonde, they will ask you through their secure portal to agree to share your attendance data.

2. Once you agree, Wonde will connect with your management information system (MIS) to extract and securely transfer the data to us.

3. Data will be shared automatically from your MIS each day. You can opt out of this data sharing at any time.

If your school does not use Wonde

If you do not use Wonde, you’ll be contacted by their team to help you install the secure portal. If you’ve not been contacted by them, check your junk folder or email support@wonde.com. There will be no costs involved and it will enable you to share attendance data with us.

Wonde can extract data from these management information systems:

• Arbor
• Bromcom
• Cloud School
• Engage
• Facility
• Integris
• iSAMS
• PupilAsset
• ScholarPack
• SIMS
• SIMS Primary
• SchoolBase
• SchoolPod
• Teacher Centre
• WBCS
• Wonde Generic

How this data will be used (including DPIA)

All data we’re collecting is subject to a privacy notice (PDF, 128 KB, 3 pages). No information that identifies a child will be shared publicly.

We’ll use this data to identify national, regional and local trends and patterns in school attendance. We’ll also share our analysis with members of the Attendance Action Alliance. Read our data collection principles (PDF, 145 KB, 3 pages) for more information.

Any analysis we share will not include any data that could identify your school.

We will not use this data for:

• Ofsted or RSC decisions making
• judgements around what constitutes a school causing concern
• inspection, academisation or decisions to place or remove a school in a trust
• funding purposes

A data protection impact assessment (DPIA) (PDF, 199 KB, 15 pages) for this collection is also available.

Accessing your school attendance reports

Schools that have shared daily attendance data can access attendance reports via a dashboard on the view your education data service.

Using the service:

• you’ll be able to see data for your school
• MATs will be able to view the data of the participating schools they are responsible for
• local authorities will be able to view the data of participating schools within their area

Read our article for help with accessing your attendance reports.

Get access to view your education data

You’ll only be able to view attendance reports if you’ve been given access by your school, trust or local authority.

If you’re from a school, you’ll need your DfE sign in account to access the service. You’ll need to request the ‘View your education data – School Attendance Data’ role from your organisation’s approver.

If you’re from a trust or local authority, you’ll need your IDAMS credentials to log in. You’ll then need to request access to ‘View your education data – School Attendance Data’ from your organisation’s super user.