The presentation will focus on the first stage of a qualitative study, exploring changes in educational policies related to school attendance. It aims to understand how schools address attendance problems within the context of pupil wellbeing. Schools in England are required to record and monitor pupil attendance data and must show how they improve attendance and punctuality (Ofsted, 2022). School absence has been primarily addressed as a safeguarding risk factor (DfE, 2022a) but this is changing, with the publication of the 2022 DfE attendance guidance and recent government ambitions to improve mental health support and provisions for young people. School Attendance Support Teams and Mental Health Support Teams are being introduced (DfE, 2022b; Ellins et al, 2021) to work with schools, signifying a shift from a more procedural and punitive approach to a more supportive and integrated one, alongside current systems of monitoring and sanctions. Policies outline the roles of stakeholders in understanding risk and protective factors, developing a whole school culture and supporting children’s mental health. In this presentation, focus is on research questions such as: What are the key changes in policies related to attendance, especially in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic? How do relevant policies inform school practice and how are they informed by evidence? How does the school culture promote attendance? What support and funding is in place within and for schools to implement sustainable changes? Government policies and guidance related to pupil wellbeing, welfare and school attendance will be reviewed. Inspection reports, school policies and attendance data will be examined. Document analysis and attendance data trends will inform further research questions for subsequent focus group interviews with teachers and non-teaching staff and interviews with secondary school pupils, experiencing school attendance problems. Absence rates have increased since 2019, and are higher among secondary school pupils, pupils with special educational needs and pupils with mental health problems (gov, 2023; John et al, 2022). The interviews will explore the views and experiences of secondary school staff and pupils of the support, strategies and interventions available and their effectiveness. Changes in relevant policies and guidance documents and agreement and discrepancies between policy and practice are compared. School policies and procedures will reveal contextual approaches of schools.

DfE. (2022a). Keeping children safe in education 2022. Statutory guidance for schools and colleges. September 2022. London: Department for Education DfE. (2022b). Working together to improve school attendance. Guidance for maintained schools, academies, independent schools and local authorities. https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/working-together-to-improve-school-attendance Ellins, J., Singh, K., Al-Haboubi, M., Newbould, J., Hocking, L., Bousfield, J., McKenna, G., & Fenton, S.-J. M., Nicholas. (2021). Early evaluation of the Children and Young People’s Mental Health Trailblazer programme. Interim Report. gov.uk. (2023). Pupil Attendance in Schools. https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/pupil-attendance-in-schools/2022-week-50 John, A., Friedmann, Y., DelPozo-Banos, M., Frizzati, A., Ford, T., & Thapar, A. (2022). Association of school absence and exclusion with recorded neurodevelopmental disorders, mental disorders, or self-harm: a nationwide, retrospective, electronic cohort study of children and young people in Wales, UK. Lancet Psychiatry, 9(1), 23-34. Ofsted. (2022). School inspection handbook. https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/school-inspection-handbook-eif/school-inspection-handbook