Where schools require support to meet their responsibilities, the School Attendance Team offer a traded service. This includes additional consultations throughout the year as well as individual work with pupils and their families to understand and support the school overcome the barriers to attendance.
Local Authority (LA) maintained schools will receive a traded offer package at no additional cost. The package provided to LA maintained schools will be determined by the School Attendance Team.
Traded casework package with costings:
| Package and Maximum number of worked cases | School contact in addition to termly support visit* | Cost (£) exc VAT |
| 1 | No additional | 500 |
| 3 | Termly contact/consultation | 825 |
| 5 | Termly contact/consultation | 1290 |
| 8 | Half termly contact/consultation | 1855 |
| 12 | Half termly contact/consultation | 2730 |
| 18 | Monthly contact/consultation | 4090 |
| 25 | Fortnightly contact/consultation | 5670 |
| 50 | Weekly contact/consultation | 10820 |
* Where packages are purchased across a Trust the additional school contact is determined by either; dividing equally by the number of schools in the Trust or the trust to allocate based on need.
E.g. A trust consisting of 1 high school and 4 primary schools purchases casework 50.
Either:
Casework 50/5 schools = 10 school contact. This would entitle each school to a half termly contact/ consultation and up to 10 parent casework cases.
Or:
The Trust can allocate casework 25 to the high school, giving the high school fortnightly contact with up to 25 parent casework cases and the primaries (50-25=25, 25/4 = 6.25) only termly contact.
The package maximum case numbers are to be used within the annual contract. Unused cases are not transferrable.
Service Benefits
The causes of poor school attendance are varied and are often a characteristic of wider safeguarding concerns. Our Education Welfare Officers (EWO’s) are well placed and equipped to assist you in addressing these concerns.
- Suffolk’s Education Welfare Officers have excellent training and support. The service is well established and available 52 weeks of the year.
- Responsive to local needs and to data trends of absence held over previous years.
- Ease of access to liaise with all Suffolk County Council services.
- Established links to liaise with outside agencies such as the Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service (CAMHS), police, GPs, school health and Suffolk’s children and families’ services.
- Our EWO’s are regularly assessed on the required competencies to ensure practice is of a high standard and is effective and consistent. The management structure carries out quality assurance of the work of the service, including auditing of case files and observations of practice.
- A proven track record of improving school attendance with research driven interventions that represent excellent value for money.
- Our EWO’s are competent in the completion of the complex paperwork required for legal action (should this be necessary) and to support and advise should a school representative be required to attend court.
School Attendance referral form
If you require a more bespoke support offer, please contact [email protected] (FAO Angela Coote) to discuss your individual School/Trust requirements.