Who's not here...? Working towards keeping "absentee students" at school

Appendix Three : Appointment of Attendance Officers

The Education Act (1989; s 31) states that ‘Any Board may appoint any person to be an attendance officer for the schools or institutions it administers’. This appointment and the role of the appointed person must be recorded by the board.

There are several options available to schools for the appointment of an attendance officer. The first of these options is where the attendance officer is a teacher on the staff of the school. This option was chosen by two schools in the study.

A second option is one where schools can share an attendance officer with other schools in the area. Two schools chose this option.

The third option available is for school boards of trustees to appoint community members as voluntary attendance officers. The persons appointed can be board of trustees members, or someone else who has no connection with the school or its immediate community. Once appointed to this position by the board, this person is required to out specified duties which may be as little as signing the warning letters that go out to parents and signing the bottom of the SP 9A Notice of Prosecution. It has been suggested that having someone who is not directly associated with the school signing such letters and forms separates the pastoral role of the school from the more punitive function of warning letters and court proceedings. None of the schools in the study had chosen this option.