An attendance intervention is being delivered only when the agreed support was available, happened as intended or with an explained adaptation, and was accessible to the pupil. An assignment in a plan proves intent. It doesn't prove that a session took place, that the pupil could participate or that the support affected attendance.
For schools in England, audit delivery before judging impact or escalating the response. Keep six things separate: the intended support, whether it was available, what happened, the pupil's participation, the attendance context and the human review decision.
Why assignment and delivery need separate records
The Department for Education's July 2026 statutory attendance guidance expects schools to agree actions with pupils and families, review them regularly, monitor the impact of interventions and adjust the approach where necessary. A strategy name beside a pupil is the beginning of that cycle.
Delivery can fail for ordinary operational reasons: the trained adult is covering elsewhere, a room disappears, the timetable clashes or an adjustment isn't ready. A plan can remain beautifully assigned while reality wanders off with the whiteboard pens.
This is an implementation question before it is an outcome question. The Education Endowment Foundation advises schools to define the core parts of an approach and gather implementation evidence that shows whether it is being delivered as intended. Monitoring should support constructive learning and adaptation, rather than become a punitive exercise.
Use this six-part delivery audit
Run the audit at the first planned review point and whenever the attendance pattern, delivery record or pupil account conflicts with the plan. Record gaps as gaps. An empty field should start a question; it shouldn't quietly become a completed session.
1. What support was intended?
State the barrier the team is trying to reduce, the agreed action, its core components, the owner, frequency, start date and review date. Note what the pupil and family agreed and any reasonable adjustment needed for access. If the plan only says “mentor support”, it is too vague to audit.
2. Was the support available?
Check whether the adult, time, place, materials and adjustment were ready. Separate support that the school could not provide from support that was available when the pupil was absent. Those are different implementation facts and lead to different next questions.
3. What was actually delivered?
Reconcile planned sessions with delivered, shortened, adapted, rearranged and cancelled sessions. Keep dates and duration. Where a core component changed, record what changed and why. A calendar booking is scheduling evidence; it becomes delivery evidence only after staff record what happened.
4. Could the pupil participate?
Record whether the pupil attended the session, could access it and experienced the intended support. Ask what helped and what got in the way. Participation isn't a character judgement, and absence from a session doesn't prove refusal or family disengagement. Health, SEND, transport, timetable, relationships and the design of the support may all need checking.
5. What does the attendance record add?
Review the relevant attendance window with its possible sessions, unresolved marks and day-or-session pattern visible. Keep authorised and unauthorised absence distinct. A change after support begins is a pattern to examine, not proof that the intervention caused it.
The DfE released a new rapid attendance estimate on 24 September 2026 covering 7 to 11 September. That national, revisable series provides context for state-funded schools; it does not show whether one school's support plan was delivered. Delivery evidence must come from the school's own reviewable record.
6. What decision follows?
Bring the pupil, family and relevant staff evidence together. Decide whether to continue, adapt, pause, replace or end the support, and state who owns the next action and when it will be reviewed. If delivery was too incomplete to judge impact, say so. “Insufficient delivery evidence” is a legitimate conclusion; “the intervention failed” may not be.
Follow the audit through one composite example
The details here combine common implementation problems. They describe no pupil, family, school or Student Radar customer.
A Year 9 pupil has been assigned a four-week morning check-in after the team hears that the crowded arrival route has become difficult. The plan names a pastoral mentor, a quieter entrance and a Monday review.
The assignment record looks complete. The delivery audit shows that six of the first ten check-ins happened. Two were cancelled because the mentor was covering; the quieter entrance was unavailable once; one morning has no delivery record. The pupil attended five delivered check-ins and says the agreed entrance helped, but the changing adult made the routine harder to trust.
Morning attendance improves during the second week, then dips after two cancellations. That sequence doesn't prove causation. It does show that the school has not yet tested the agreed routine consistently enough to make a confident impact judgement.
The attendance lead arranges reliable cover, keeps the quieter entrance, checks the missing record and agrees another short review with the pupil and family. No automatic safeguarding, sanction, penalty notice or legal route follows from the pattern. Any concern that may involve harm still goes promptly through the school's DSL and established local procedures.
What the audit cannot prove
The audit cannot diagnose why a pupil is absent, establish neglect or harm, predict future absence, prove parental fault or determine that a particular legal response is appropriate. It also cannot turn correlation into impact evidence.
A delivered session count says nothing by itself about quality, accessibility or whether the support addressed the pupil's barrier. Pupil and family views are essential evidence, but they do not remove the need to check delivery and attendance records. Conflicting accounts should remain visible for professional review.
How Student Radar supports the audit
In Student Radar, Attendance Playbooks can help authorised staff choose and assign a graduated strategy and see active playbook runs. The Intervention Planner can keep the intended plan, scheduled and delivered sessions, pupil participation, observations and the human review decision in separate records.
These records support the audit; they don't decide whether support worked or what should happen next. Staff remain responsible for checking the source, hearing the pupil and family, considering other authorised evidence and using the appropriate attendance, SEND, health or safeguarding route.
Start with the attendance support meeting agenda when the plan itself needs clarification. Use the three-week attendance review when the source pattern still needs testing. For a focused walkthrough of the connected records, talk to Student Radar.
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, RISE attendance improvement, guidance and evidence resources for England, updated 9 June 2026.
- Department for Education, Pupil attendance in schools, rapid official statistics for England, updated 24 September 2026 with data covering 7 to 11 September 2026; provisional and revisable.
- Education Endowment Foundation, Supporting school attendance: monitor the impact of approaches, published 31 January 2024.
- Education Endowment Foundation, A School's Guide to Implementation, third edition published 24 April 2024.