Take today's register

Written for: Alternative provision staff.

In an alternative provision, you take a register for each session on the rota. The Daily Register lists today’s sessions, shows which registers still need taking, and lets you mark each booked pupil as present, late or absent. You record the times they arrived and left, too.

Open the Daily Register

In the sidebar, open Attendance and choose Daily Register. You can also click Take register at the top of Today.

The page opens on today. To see another day, use the arrows either side of Register date, or pick a date. Click Today to come back.

See what needs doing

At the top of the page:

• Marked shows how many booked places have a mark, out of all the places booked today. The bar splits them into Present, Absent and Not yet marked. Underneath, it says how many registers are still to take.
• Sessions shows the day’s sessions on a timeline. Click one to open its register.

Below that is a list of the day’s sessions. Registers still to take come first. Each session shows its time, location and how many pupils are recorded, with a status:

Status	What it means
Not started	Nobody booked into the session has been marked.
In progress	Some of the booked pupils have been marked.
Complete	Every booked pupil has been marked.
Cancelled	The session was cancelled, so no new marks.
Nothing to record	Nobody is booked into the session.

A pupil who hasn’t been marked is unknown, not absent.

Take a register

1. Click Take register on the session.
2. To mark everyone in at once, click Mark all present. Their planned start and finish times are filled in.
3. For each pupil, choose Present, Late arrival, Absent or Unrecorded.
4. For a late arrival, open Times and details and enter the Arrival time. If you enter a time after the planned start, the mark changes to Late arrival on its own. You can add a Late arrival reason (optional).
5. If a pupil left early, enter their Departure time and tick Left early. Then enter an Early departure reason (required).
6. For an absent pupil, enter an Absence reason (required). If you don’t know why yet, click Reason not yet known.
7. Check the count at the bottom, then click the save button. It shows how many records it will save, for example Save 3 attendance records.

The register closes and the session’s status updates. Each change you haven’t saved yet is marked Unsaved change.

Change a mark you’ve saved

1. Click Review register on the session.
2. Find the pupil and change their mark or times. Open Times, correction and saved details to see what was saved before.
3. Enter a Correction reason (required when saving changes).
4. Save the register.

The earlier mark isn’t overwritten. Open Observation history under the register to see every version, with when it was recorded and why it changed.

Sessions that need staff first

Sessions from a pupil’s agreed placement plan appear under Planned sessions that need staff until someone assigns staff to them on the rota. They don’t have a register yet. If you manage the rota, click Assign staff to do it now. Otherwise, ask whoever manages the rota. See Assign staff to a session or cancel a session.

Notes

• Session marks and statutory attendance: these registers record who attended each session. They don’t change statutory attendance codes. To read statutory attendance and participation, see Record session attendance and read participation.
• Who can take registers: staff who can record attendance or manage the rota can take registers. Some staff can read registers without changing them.
• Future sessions: you can open a future session’s register, but you can only mark it on the day.
• Your provision’s words: labels use your provision’s Setting profile. The defaults are pupil, group and commissioning school, so your labels may differ.
• The AP menu: the sidebar described here appears when your setting profile is alternative provision and AP operations are active. It only shows the pages you can open.

If something doesn’t work

What you see	What to do
“Choose an absence reason, including Reason not yet known when appropriate.”	Enter an absence reason, or click Reason not yet known.
“Add a reason for leaving early.”	Enter an early departure reason of at least 3 characters.
“Enter the late arrival time.”	Open Times and details and enter the Arrival time.
“Departure cannot precede arrival.”	Check the arrival and departure times.
“Add a correction reason (at least 3 characters).”	You’re changing a saved mark. Say why in the correction reason.
“The booking, observation or access changed. Reload and review before saving again. No partial save was kept.”	Someone changed the session or its bookings while you had it open. Click Reload register, check the marks and save again.
“The receipt could not be confirmed. Retry the same save to recover its result.”	The connection dropped before the save was confirmed. Click Retry same save so nothing is saved twice.
“The registers for this day could not be loaded. No figures have been substituted.”	Click Retry registers. If it keeps happening, click Open weekly rota to check the day’s sessions.
“You do not have permission to take or review session registers.”	Ask your Provision Lead for access.
“No booked pupils are available within your attendance access.”	The pupils booked into this session are outside your attendance access. Ask a colleague who works with them.
Sessions listed under Attendance status unavailable	These sessions are on the rota, but their registers aren’t available to you. Click Open weekly rota to check them.