A governor attendance report should let the board answer five questions: what is being measured, where the pattern sits, what leaders have checked, what support or safeguarding action follows, and what evidence will return. Put each headline beside its denominator, source, limitation, owner and review date. That creates a decision paper, not a league table.
This one-page template is for maintained schools and academy trusts in England. It is accurate on 13 August 2026, supports professional governance review and is not legal advice.
The report has one job: improve the board's questions
The July 2026 maintained-school and academy-trust governance guides say boards should regularly review attendance data, challenge trends and help leaders focus on pupils or cohorts who need improvement efforts most.
The statutory attendance guidance also expects governing bodies and trust boards to hold leaders to account for their attendance strategy, including the support offered to pupils and families.
A summer report should therefore do more than announce an annual percentage. It should show which evidence is dependable, where barriers may remain and what the board needs to test in September. A dashboard can supply colour. Governance still has to supply the question.
Use this one-page attendance report sequence
Keep the main paper to six blocks. Put detailed tables in a controlled appendix when the board genuinely needs them. Small groups and intersections may identify pupils, so agree disclosure controls with the school's data lead or DPO.
1. Scope and source
State the school or trust, phase, dates, pupils included and possible-session rules. Name each source, its extraction date and any late feeds, missing marks, leavers or code changes.
2. The headline with its denominator
Show attendance and absence, plus authorised and unauthorised absence where they answer the board's question. Give pupil counts and possible sessions beside percentages. Keep persistent and severe absence distinct from unauthorised absence.
In current DfE guidance, persistent absence means missing 10% or more of possible sessions; severe absence means missing 50% or more. Neither threshold proves a cause or creates an automatic enforcement route.
3. Where the pattern sits
Compare the same period with the previous year, relevant DfE reports and groups chosen for the school's context. Include year, phase or session patterns and selected characteristics only when coverage is adequate and the group remains safe to report.
Show missingness beside every gap. A difference between groups is a prompt to inspect access, coding and support. It is not a description of the pupils in that group.
4. What leaders checked
Summarise the enquiries behind the headline: register accuracy, pupil and family voice, health or transport barriers, SEND provision, curriculum access, behaviour context and the reliability of support already offered.
Separate evidence from interpretation. Record uncertainty and disagreement. Governors need to know when the school has a plausible explanation and when it has only a useful next question.
5. Support, safeguarding and ownership
List the whole-school or cohort action, its owner, resources, start date and intended evidence. Keep individual case detail out of the board paper unless a lawful governance purpose requires tightly controlled access.
Attendance patterns do not prove neglect, exploitation, illness, unmet SEND or parental disengagement. Urgent concerns follow the school's DSL and established local or emergency procedures. The report should show that this route is functioning without exposing a case.
6. What will return to the board
Set the review date and the evidence that could change the decision: corrected codes, better coverage, pupil or family feedback, delivery records, reduced barriers or a different pattern. Name who will bring it back.
Avoid claiming impact from a before-and-after percentage alone. Describe what was delivered, who could access it and what other explanations remain. The board needs assurance that the plan was implemented before it can ask whether the pattern changed.
Do not blend unlike national evidence
The latest DfE attendance release on 6 August 2026 covers 8 September 2025 to 24 July 2026. It is official statistics built from regular data automatically submitted by participating state-funded schools.
The accredited full-year absence release for 2024/25 was published on 26 March 2026 and uses pupil-level school-census data. These sources have different coverage, timing and methods. Label them separately, and do not splice their percentages into one trend.
DfE's Monitor your school attendance reports can compare mainstream schools with national averages and statistically similar schools. Its guide warns that figures may differ from published statistics or the school MIS because periods, filters and calculations differ.
Walk a made-up headline through the template
These invented details illustrate the review and do not describe a real school, pupil or customer. A secondary school's annual paper shows lower attendance in one year group and a wider gap for pupils recorded as receiving SEN Support.
The attendance lead first finds missing sessions after an MIS migration. Correcting them narrows the gap. Session analysis still shows an afternoon pattern, while provision records show that some agreed support clashed with lessons and was not delivered consistently.
Pupil and family conversations describe several different barriers. A separate concern is already with the DSL. The board paper does not reproduce the case or merge safeguarding evidence into a score.
The question changes from “Why is this group absent?” to “Are afternoon access and support reliable, what do pupils and families say, and what evidence will test the September plan?” The attendance lead owns the review with the SENCo, pastoral lead and DSL in their proper roles.
Five challenges governors can use in the meeting
- Which pupils, dates and possible sessions sit inside this figure?
- What is missing, late, revised or too small to interpret safely?
- What have leaders checked with pupils, families and relevant staff?
- Which support was actually available, and who could access it?
- What evidence returns, on what date, and what could change the plan?
Those questions keep the board strategic. They test leadership, resource and assurance without turning governors into case managers or asking one percentage to carry an entire family's story.
What the attendance report cannot decide
The report cannot diagnose a pupil, explain motive, establish a safeguarding fact, determine reasonable adjustments or predict future absence. Group gaps cannot show that a pupil or family has failed to engage.
A threshold does not choose an attendance contract, referral, penalty notice or legal route. Current statutory guidance requires schools and local authorities to consider individual circumstances, support and the applicable legal tests.
Governors should receive enough information to challenge strategy and assurance. Authorised staff retain pupil-level professional review, and pupils and families need a route to correct or challenge the school's interpretation.
Where Student Radar fits
Student Radar's available Attendance Analytics can help authorised leaders review periods, sessions and groups. The available Heatmap can open the pupil context behind an aggregate signal.
These views can support preparation of a board paper, but they do not write the governance judgement. Student Radar does not diagnose a barrier, predict absence, decide safeguarding action or select an enforcement route. The source MIS remains the attendance record.
For the analysis behind the report, use the attendance cohort-view guide. For wider SEND assurance, keep this paper distinct from the governor SEND report.
To review the available attendance workflow with your authorised school data, request an attendance-focused walkthrough.
Sources and further reading
- Working together to improve school attendance, Department for Education, published 6 May 2022; updated 9 July 2026.
- Maintained schools: governance guide, Department for Education, updated July 2026.
- Academy trusts: governance guide, Department for Education, updated July 2026.
- Monitor your school attendance: user guide, Department for Education, published 27 March 2024; updated 22 July 2026.
- Pupil attendance in schools, Department for Education, official statistics updated 6 August 2026, covering 8 September 2025 to 24 July 2026.
- Pupil absence in schools in England: 2024 to 2025, Department for Education, accredited official statistics published 26 March 2026 and updated 21 May 2026.
- School Attendance (Pupil Registration) (England) Regulations 2024, legislation governing admission and attendance registers in England.