New persistant absentee methodology

[Ecclesbury]

I'm busy wading through various DfE releases and RAISE methodology guides to try and answer some questions about absence statitics, but just in case anyone has already done this and come up with the answers I thought I'd ask here.

 

I understand that the methodology for calculating the new 90% PA threshold is changing so that a student does not have to hit a pre-defined number of sessions, they just have to miss more than 10% of their own possible sessions. Does anyone know if this relates to each enrolment for that student, or for the students as a whole. In other words, if a students missed 15% of their possible sessions at one school, moved to a second school and missed 15% of those possible sessions, would they count as PA at both schools, or just at the second school? Equally if a student missed 15% at the first school but only 5% at the second school would they count as PA for the second school...or just the first (same question really)

 

Another query I have is whether there is going to be a minimum threshold of sessions. If a student joined the school 2 days before the end of term, and missed one of those days would they be classes as PA? Page 7 of this document suggest that the answer is that there is no minimum number of sessions but it's not explicit.

 

Final question, a lot of what I have read relates to the DfE statistical releases. Does anyone know if the same methodology is likely to apply to RAISE reports?

[garbage46]

Hi, how would you currently work out you PA students? Would you report on any students with <90% attendance or number of student who have missed x number of sessions?

 

Which method is correct?

[Ecclesbury]

Hi petern,

 

In simple terms the correct method is to calculate any student who has missed 10% or more of their own total possible sessions. So if a student is only on roll for 10 days, and missed 2 days, they will count as PA.

 

I'm sticking with that at the moment, although I haven't found any clarification on my queries above so I might have the detail slightly wron. For practical purposes it is best to use the definition above. That way you will know your worst possible outcome.