After an unsettled return, use the next five school days to observe what is happening, listen to the pupil and family, agree one or two support changes, test whether they happen, and review the evidence together. Keep the plan small. It should stabilise the school day, not label the pupil or turn an awkward first morning into a forecast for the term.
This response workflow is for attendance leaders, pastoral teams, DSLs, family-support staff, SENCos and school leaders in England. It applies once the pupil is back in school. A pupil who has not returned still needs the school's first-day absence, safeguarding and, where relevant, children-missing-education procedures.
Use five days to answer one practical question
Ask: what would make the next school day more predictable and accessible?The answer may involve arrival, transport, a trusted adult, a room change, lunch, medication, timetable access, an agreed adjustment or the way home-school contact works.
The Department for Education's July 2026 statutory attendance guidance expects schools to notice patterns early, discuss them with pupils and parents, understand barriers and arrange support. It also says adjustments should be agreed and regularly reviewed with the pupil and parents. The five-day plan is a school practice tool for doing that work. It isn't a new statutory form or a substitute for an existing plan.
Day 1: observe facts and keep urgent routes open
Record the sessions attended, late arrival or early departure, where the day became hard, what staff observed, and which planned support was available. Separate a direct observation from an explanation offered by somebody else. Check register marks and source times before interpreting a pattern.
If information suggests immediate harm or another urgent safeguarding concern, staff should follow the school's child-protection policy and contact the DSL or deputy without waiting for this five-day review. KCSIE 2026 is now in force. Repeated or prolonged absence can be a warning sign that requires safeguarding consideration, but attendance alone does not prove abuse, neglect, exploitation or any other cause.
Day 2: listen before designing the answer
Offer the pupil an accessible way to describe the return. Ask what felt manageable, where uncertainty increased, which adult or routine helped, and what they want staff to understand. Invite the family's account through the channel that works for them. Use an interpreter, visual prompt, phone call or face-to-face conversation where that improves access.
DfE communication guidance updated on 19 August 2026 recommends supportive, non-judgemental language, a specific contact and small achievable steps. Its new back-to-school reset guide also suggests focusing on facts, listening before solving, making routines familiar and addressing anxieties in advance. Those suggestions can inform a conversation; they don't establish why attendance was unsettled.
Day 3: agree the smallest testable support change
Choose one or two steps the school can deliver and the pupil and family can understand. A long menu of worthy intentions is hard to test and surprisingly good at surviving meetings. Write the plan on one page:
- Observed situation: factual sessions, places and times, with source dates.
- Pupil and family view: attributed in their own terms, including disagreement.
- Support to test: the precise change, adjustment or contact arrangement.
- Owner and delivery: who will do it, when, and what cover applies.
- Review evidence: what will be checked on day 5 and what could change the plan.
Keep formal reasonable adjustments under the Equality Act 2010 distinct from ordinary attendance support. Where disability is relevant, the school must consider its legal duties and the pupil's existing plan. A short return plan must not quietly reduce an agreed adjustment or special educational provision.
Day 4: test delivery as carefully as attendance
Check whether the agreed adult was available, the route or room was ready, the communication happened and the pupil could use the arrangement. Record missed delivery and substitutions. Attendance data can show whether a session was attended; it cannot show that the promised support was present or accessible.
If a time-limited phased return is being considered, use the statutory guidance and the school's proper decision route. It should be individually agreed, regularly reviewed and connected to a plan for increasing attendance. Do not improvise a reduced timetable as an informal way of making the figures or the day easier.
Day 5: review, continue, change or close
Put delivery evidence beside the attendance sessions and the pupil and family accounts. Then choose one of four recorded decisions: continue the step for a defined period, adapt it and retest, move the issue into an existing SEND, health, family-help or safeguarding plan, or close the short plan because the ordinary routine is now sufficient.
Name the owner and next review date for any open action. If the picture is worsening or the support needed sits outside the school's control, involve the local authority attendance team or other relevant service through the established route. A percentage does not choose the service, sanction, penalty notice or legal response.
See how connected evidence changes the next question
The details below are made up and combine common school situations. They describe no pupil, family, school or Student Radar customer.
A pupil attends every morning in the first week but leaves early twice. The register confirms the sessions. The pupil says lunch is noisy and the changed pick-up arrangement feels uncertain. The family contact record shows that the new end-of-day plan was discussed, but the receiving staff member was not named. The SEND plan includes access to a quieter lunch space, while delivery notes show that the room was unavailable on one day.
The evidence does not prove that lunch caused either early departure. It changes the next question: can the school make the quiet space and pick-up handover predictable for two days, then ask the pupil and family whether the change helped? The pastoral lead owns the test, the SENCo checks the adjustment, and the attendance lead reviews the sessions. Any separate safeguarding information remains with the DSL and its authorised process.
Where Student Radar fits
Student Radar's Attendance Analytics supports period, session, cohort and pupil-list review. Attendance Playbooks provides a graduated support framework and shared action logs. From the pupil profile, authorised staff can review wider context and the communication log rather than treating an attendance percentage as the whole record.
These features can keep the observation, support owner and review evidence close together. They cannot diagnose a barrier, predict absence, decide a safeguarding threshold, select an adjustment, or trigger a referral, sanction, penalty notice or legal route. Staff check the evidence, listen to the pupil and family, and remain accountable for every decision.
Sources and further reading
- Department for Education, Working together to improve school attendance, statutory guidance for England, published 6 May 2022 and updated 9 July 2026.
- Department for Education, A guide for schools on communicating with parents about attendance, guidance for England updated 19 August 2026.
- Department for Education, The back-to-school reset guide, guidance for England added 19 August 2026.
- Department for Education, Keeping children safe in education 2026, statutory guidance for England in force from 1 September 2026.
- Department for Education, Mental health issues affecting a pupil's attendance: guidance for schools, guidance for England published 7 February 2023.
Use the attendance change-card guide when the main task is detecting a pattern. Use the attendance and safeguarding review when a wider DSL-led discussion is required. To see the five-day workflow with your school's roles, request an attendance-focused walkthrough.