GovWire

Guidance: Share your daily school attendance data

Department For Education

February 17
17:18 2023

DfE is collecting automatic daily attendance data from schools that agree to share their data with us. Getting daily attendance data:

  • gives schools, local authorities and academy trusts access to more up-to-date pupil-level attendance data
  • helps you meet the new expectations set out in working together to improve school attendance
  • will not add to your schools workload

Schools should use the reports to help improve attendance by identifying trends and those pupils who need support, and sharing attendance data with their 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
  • sex
  • ethnicity
  • child looked after
  • child previously looked after
  • special educational needs (SEN) support
  • education health and care plan
  • free school meals
  • national curriculum year group
  • school unique reference number (URN)
  • local authority code
  • admission date
  • expected leaving date (where available)
  • actual leaving date
  • child in need (where available)
  • child protection plan (where available)

Were requesting each of these data items for:

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

Were not collecting information recorded in the comments field in a MIS.

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

How to send us your attendance data

The data will be collected by a company called Wonde.

If your school already uses Wondes secure portal

Wonde will ask you via its portal to agree to share your attendance data. Once you agree, it will connect with your MIS to extract and securely transfer the data to us automatically each day. You can opt out of this data-sharing at any time.

If your school does not currently use Wondes secure portal

Youll be contacted by Wondes team to help you install the secure portal. If youve not been contacted by them, first check your junk folder, then email support@wonde.com. There will be no costs involved and it will enable you to share your attendance data with us.

Wonde can extract data from these MISs:

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

How this data will be used

All data were collecting is subject to a privacy notice (PDF, 166 KB, 3 pages). No information that identifies a child will be shared publicly.

Well use this data to identify national, regional and local trends, and patterns in school attendance.

Well share our analysis with members of the Attendance Action Alliances. Well not share school-identifiable-level data with the national Attendance Action Alliance, but we may share it with local Attendance Action Alliances. Read our data collection principles (PDF, 121 KB, 3 pages) to find out more.

We will not use this data for:

  • Ofsted or regional director decision-making
  • judgements about what constitutes a school causing concern
  • inspection, academisation or decisions to place a school in or remove it from a trust
  • funding purposes

A data protection impact assessment (DPIA) (PDF, 294 KB, 20 pages) is available for this collection.

Accessing your schools attendance reports

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

We will email you when your reports are ready to view. This can take up to 4 weeks from when you first start sharing daily data.

Using the service:

  • youll be able to see data for your school
  • multi-academy trusts will be able to view the data of the participating schools theyre responsible for
  • local authorities will be able to view the data of participating schools in their area

Read more about how to access your attendance reports.

Get access to view your education data

Youll only be able to view attendance reports if youve been given access by your school, trust or local authority.

If youre from a school, youll need your Department for Education (DfE) Sign-in account details to access the service. Youll need to request the View your education data school attendance data role from your organisations approver.

If youre from a trust or local authority, youll need your identity and access management service (IDAMS) credentials to log in. Youll then need to request access to View your education data school attendance data from your organisations super-user.

Published 14 March 2022
Last updated 17 February 2023 +show all updates
  1. Updated the list of data items in the What data we need section. Added information on school identifiable level data in the How this data will be used section. Also updated the data protection impact assessment (DPIA), privacy notice and data collection principles documents to reflect that this collection is now business as usual. Sections 2 (a), 3 and 6 in the DPIA have been updated. The data is being shared with schools, trusts and local authorities, with aggregated attendance statistics being published.

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