During my 11 years working in education I have taken approximately 3800 am/pm session registrations and entered in the region of 76000 codes into 5 different systems in 4 different schools.
At no point in my teacher training, my NQT year or the 9 years following, did anyone think it was important to teach me about registration codes.
Not that this is intended as a criticism. Early on, in the very limited cases when I needed to branch out beyond /, \, I and M there was someone to ask and then I discovered the government attendance guidance document and read it for myself.
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/school-attendance
From the bizarre ‘advice’ and dubious assertions I have received from otherwise exceptionally intelligent colleagues over the years surrounding registration codes, I can conclude I’m not the only one who took a while to find the magic piece of alphabet paper.
So here’s my ECT guide to registration codes:
The student is in school, right here, I can see them, they’ve been here since the register opened.
Oh no, registration has ended and the student is leaving to go to a medical appointment. I’ve already marked them as present!
The student was not here when the register started but they’ve sauntered in apologetically 10 minutes after it started because the bus was late.
“Sorry I’m late Miss, I went to Greggs”.
“I left my bag on the bus and it had my train pass in it so then I missed the train while they phoned the bus company and I’m here but I have no bag” “My Mum forgot to drop us off and just drove to work with us in the car”
“The train was late” “I saw your sister 20 minutes ago!” “Yeah ok I actually overslept and she left without me.”
Late excuses can be entertaining, be sure to collect a few to look back on in future.
The student is not on site with me but they are involved in an educational activity, will this affect their attendance?
It’s also worth noting at this point that schools have different policies on who is responsible for collating information on trips, visits, sporting events etc and it may be that everything comes to you.
Alternatively a central-awesome-admin-hero may be fielding communication from parents and taking phone calls from trips with registration data and will fill in vital information for you.
How’s it going? Got all of that so far?
Those are 2 of the 5 overall categories in the school census; present and approved education activity which is also counted as present but recorded separately.
I’ve taken the register, the student isn’t here, the session has ended and despite rumours from the other students I have no idea where the student is and have received no communication.
The location of the student has been communicated to me - what do I put?
What about a snow day??
Registration codes are important. They’re not glamorous or dramatic or particularly interesting but they are important (and not just because the government requires for registers to be completed accurately and to be reported.) The most important reason to ensure they are accurate is to keep students safe by knowing exactly where they are.
The Department for Education (DfE) published research in 2016 which found that the higher the overall absence rate across Key Stage2 and KS4, the lower the likely level of attainment at the end of KS2 and KS4. Being in school benefits students directly and unless we understand why they aren’t in school, we can’t help because every different reason for absence has a different possible avenue to tackle it.
Your lessons might be the nicest, safest, most enjoyable place to be in the whole world but that won’t improve the attendance of a student with chronic fatigue or the sixth former on the county basketball team.
The data won’t solve the problems for us, but together it can tell a story and sometimes we learn a lot just by trying to collect it.
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/absence-and-attainment-at-key-stages-2-and-4-2013-to-2014
12th October 2021 10 mins
Blog post
7th June 2019 10 mins
Blog post
4th April 2019 10 mins
Blog post
1st February 2019 10 mins
Blog post
4th December 2018 10 mins
How to
4th October 2018 10 mins
How to
2nd August 2018 10 mins
How to
12th April 2018 10 mins
Blog post
1st November 2017 5 mins
Blog post
20th July 2017 10 mins
Blog post