Bradford Council
Working together to improve school attendance
Working with schools, children, families and partner services to improve attendance and increase access to education.
Every Bradford school has a named
Attendance Support Officer. The Attendance Support Team provides Bradford's core local-authority attendance offer, including advice, Targeting Support Meetings, support for multi-disciplinary working and legal intervention where appropriate.
About the Attendance Support Team
The Department for Education's statutory guidance,
Working together to improve school attendance , requires every local authority to provide a School Attendance Support Team that works with all schools in its area.
Bradford's Attendance Support Team works through a locality model aligned with Education Safeguarding and Family Hubs. Every school has a named
Attendance Support Officer, who provides a consistent point of contact for attendance advice, Targeting Support Meetings and access to Bradford's wider attendance-support arrangements.
The Attendance Support Team works with schools to:
- understand attendance patterns and emerging concerns;
- identify pupils and cohorts requiring additional attention;
- provide advice on persistent and severe absence;
- support schools to understand barriers affecting children and families;
- connect schools with SEND, Early Help, Family Hubs and other services;
- provide check and challenge where plans are not increasing educational access;
- support escalation where voluntary support is delayed, disputed or ineffective;
- advise on formal attendance intervention where appropriate.
The Attendance Support Team does not replace schools' attendance responsibilities. Schools remain responsible for their whole-school attendance strategy, day-to-day processes, relationships with
families, school-led plans, reasonable adjustments, safeguarding and requests for wider support.
Bradford's core attendance-support offer
Bradford provides the following four core functions free of charge to all schools:
1. Communication and advice
Named contacts, guidance, newsletters, briefings, networks and professional advice.
2. Targeting Support Meetings
Termly, strategic meetings focused on data, priority children, clear actions and review.
3. Multi-disciplinary support
Coordinated support where barriers extend beyond the school.
4. Legal intervention
Formal support or enforcement where voluntary support has not worked or is not appropriate.
Targeting Support Meetings
Every Bradford school is expected to take part in
one Targeting Support Meeting each term with its linked Attendance Support Officer.
A Targeting Support Meeting, or TSM, provides a structured opportunity for the school and Bradford's Attendance Support Team to review attendance, identify priority pupils and cohorts, and agree focused action.
A TSM should help the school and Attendance Support Officer to:
- review the school's overall attendance position;
- identify emerging trends and concerns;
- consider persistent and severe absence;
- review progress against previously agreed actions;
- consider whether existing plans are improving educational access;
- agree focused school and local-authority actions;
- identify where SEND, Early Help, Family Hub or other partner support may be required;
- clarify ownership, timescales and review arrangements;
- prevent concerns and individual cases from drifting.
What a TSM is
Strategic, collaborative, data-informed, action-focused and part of Bradford's free core attendance-support offer.
What a TSM is not
A school inspection, an audit, a replacement for school attendance management, a referral panel or a reason to delay urgent action.
Senior leadership involvement
Targeting Support Meetings require active school leadership. The school's
Senior Attendance Champion, or another appropriately authorised senior leader, should be actively involved.
The participating senior leader should have sufficient knowledge and authority to:
- discuss the school's attendance strategy;
- consider whole-school and cohort-level trends;
- agree school actions and commit appropriate resources;
- address barriers involving school policy, provision or practice;
- ensure that agreed actions are implemented and reviewed;
- escalate matters requiring wider school-leadership attention.
Attendance staff bring essential operational knowledge, but a TSM should not be delegated to operational attendance colleagues without meaningful senior-leader oversight and participation.
The strongest meeting arrangements will normally include a senior leader who can make decisions, colleagues who understand the children and families being discussed, and the linked Attendance Support Officer.
Shared responsibility for change: School leaders, attendance colleagues, Bradford Council and partner services each have clear responsibilities for improving educational access.
Effective attendance support combines strategic school leadership, detailed operational knowledge, child and family engagement and timely contributions from Bradford Council and relevant partner services.
Preparing for a TSM
Effective preparation ensures that meeting time is used for professional discussion, decisions and action rather than finding information.
Schools should consider:
- current whole-school attendance data and trends;
- persistent and severe absence;
- relevant year groups, phases and priority cohorts;
- pupils whose attendance is deteriorating;
- pupils receiving little or no education;
- existing attendance, SEND, Early Help or safeguarding plans;
- progress against actions agreed at the previous TSM;
- issues requiring local-authority advice or support;
- which pupils genuinely require joint discussion.
The purpose is not to discuss every pupil at every meeting. Schools should prioritise children and cohorts where joint attention, challenge, wider support or escalation could make a difference.
Priority pupils and cohorts
TSM discussion is likely to prioritise:
Persistent and severe absence
Pupils already persistently or severely absent, or whose attendance is deteriorating.
SEND and accessibility
Pupils whose attendance may relate to unmet need, unsuitable provision or accessibility barriers.
Health and emotional wellbeing
Pupils affected by illness, anxiety, emotionally based school avoidance or mental-health needs.
Wider vulnerabilities
Children with social workers, looked-after children, young carers and pupils affected by exploitation or youth justice.
Family and practical barriers
Housing, poverty, transport, parental health, routines or family relationships.
Transition and active recovery
Pupils affected by school movement, placement instability, major transition or risk of relapse.
Developing framework: Bradford is testing a Red, Amber and Blue approach to help schools and services consider the urgency and intensity of the response required. The framework remains subject to
assurance, co-production and further testing.
Severe Absence Prioritisation Framework: The developing framework is intended to help professionals match the urgency and intensity of support to the child's circumstances.
Red: restore urgently. Respond to negligible education, attendance collapse, limited contact, significant welfare concerns or a breakdown in provision or ownership.
Amber: understand and unblock. Coordinate the response where severe absence is longstanding, barriers interact, several services are involved or the existing plan is not improving educational access.
Blue: sustain recovery. Maintain ownership and support where attendance is improving, a child has recently moved out of severe absence or transition creates a risk of deterioration.
Every Red, Amber and Blue child requires: clear ownership, a current plan, a defined education offer, regular review and escalation where progress stalls.
Structure of a Targeting Support Meeting
1. Strategic discussion
Review whole-school attendance, trends, priority cohorts, persistent and severe absence, school processes, provision and progress against previous actions.
2. Priority pupil discussions
For each priority child, consider:
- What does the attendance pattern tell us?
- What has the child said about the barriers and what might help?
- What has the parent or carer said?
- What has the school already done, and what difference has this made?
- Have SEND, accessibility, health, safeguarding and family circumstances been considered?
- Is there already a current plan, and who is coordinating it?
- What education is available and currently being accessed?
- What needs to be different before the next review?
- Who owns each action?
- When will progress be reviewed?
- What is the local authority or another partner being asked to do?
- What will happen if the plan does not increase educational access?
3. Actions and review
Every action should identify:
- what will happen;
- who is responsible;
- the intended outcome;
- the timescale;
- the review date;
- what will happen if the action is delayed or has no impact.
What will be different for the child, family or school following this meeting?
Targeting Support Meetings support a structured journey from identifying concerns and understanding barriers through to coordinated action, review and adaptation.
The six-stage pathway
- Identify: recognise the attendance concern, educational access and any immediate welfare issues.
- Understand: listen to the child and family and explore the underlying barriers and strengths.
- Prioritise: determine the urgency and intensity of the response required.
- Route: connect the child and family with the right school, SEND, Early Help, health or other support.
- Act: agree and deliver clear actions, ownership and timescales.
- Review and adapt: assess the impact on educational access and change the plan where progress stalls.
The Bradford TSM Record
Bradford has developed a digital TSM Record to support consistent, purposeful meetings across the district.
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The Bradford TSM Record supports consistent pupil discussions, agreed actions, named ownership and clear review arrangements. (This a screenshot using demo data, no real names etc have been used)
The record brings together:
- meeting details and attendance data;
- the strategic discussion;
- whole-school and cohort actions;
- priority pupil discussions;
- short discussion notes;
- written plans;
- suggested and bespoke actions;
- action owners and review dates;
- the final downloadable meeting record.
Adding actions
During a pupil discussion, users can select Suggest Actions to access Bradford's action bank or
+ Add Action to create a bespoke action.
Suggested actions can be selected, added to the record and edited so that they reflect the individual circumstances. Each action should then be given an owner, timescale, review date and intended outcome.
Actions included within a written plan can be downloaded using Download action plan. Actions added to a short discussion note will appear within the complete pupil-discussion record downloaded at the end of the meeting.
Important: The TSM Record supports professional discussion and agreed actions. It does not replace the school's management information system, safeguarding records, SEND records or statutory case-management
systems.
Action between meetings
Schools and Attendance Support Officers must not wait for the next TSM where:
- attendance deteriorates rapidly;
- severe absence emerges;
- a child is receiving little or no education;
- contact with a child or family is lost;
- a safeguarding or welfare concern arises;
- a placement appears at risk of breakdown;
- agreed support is significantly delayed;
- formal attendance advice is needed.
Safeguarding concerns require immediate action. A TSM or other attendance process must never delay established safeguarding or welfare procedures.
Multi-disciplinary support for children and families
Where barriers are complex and signposting alone is insufficient, schools, the Attendance Support Team and relevant services should work together to provide coordinated support.
This should build on existing arrangements such as:
- Early Help and Family Hub support;
- SEN Support and EHC plans;
- Child in Need and Child Protection plans;
- health and mental-health support;
- school-led attendance, reintegration and educational-access plans.
One coordinated plan
Children and families should ordinarily have one current coordinated plan rather than separate attendance, Early Help, SEND and service plans that duplicate actions. The lead practitioner should be the person or service best placed to coordinate the response.
The Attendance Support Team may:
- advise the lead practitioner on attendance and educational access;
- participate in Team Around the Family arrangements;
- connect schools with relevant services;
- provide case consultation and constructive challenge;
- support escalation where actions are delayed;
- lead formal attendance intervention where appropriate.
Legal intervention
Where voluntary support has not been successful, has not been engaged with or would not be appropriate, the Attendance Support Team may work with the school and relevant practitioners to consider formal attendance intervention.
This may include:
- formal attendance contracts or parenting contracts;
- notices to improve;
- education supervision orders;
- penalty notices;
- prosecution as a last resort.
Formal intervention should be considered proportionately and should take account of the reason for absence, support offered, parental engagement, SEND, reasonable adjustments, health and wider vulnerabilities.
View Bradford's Staged Intervention Approach to Poor Attendance
Core Attendance Support and the traded offer
The Attendance Support Team provides Bradford's statutory core attendance-support functions free of charge.
The core offer does not replace day-to-day attendance work which remains the school's responsibility. Schools wishing to purchase additional operational support can access Bradford's traded attendance offer.
Traded support may include:
- first-day attendance activity;
- home visits undertaken on behalf of the school;
- parent meetings;
- school attendance casework;
- school-led action plans;
- attendance training;
- attendance audits;
- policy and process development;
- professional supervision for school attendance staff.
Find out more about Bradford's traded attendance offer
Related resources
Page owner: John Leese, Attendance Lead
Professional contact:
[email protected]
Review status: Updated to reflect Bradford's revised Targeting Support Meeting arrangements and Attendance Support Officer terminology.