Effective management of school workforce attendance in primary schools

Recommendations

The Welsh Government should:

• R1 Promote the ‘Effective Management of School Workforce attendance’ document more widely
• R2 Provide schools and local authorities with guidance on monitoring, recording and evaluating the impact of staff absence due to activities other than illness, such as training, conferences and school-to-school support
• R3 Produce guidance on the effective management of headteacher absence
• R4 Ensure that the provision of supply cover in the Welsh-medium sector is addressed when reviewing the teacher workforce strategy

Local authorities should:

• R5 Ensure that training on managing workforce attendance is available for all headteachers and forms part of an induction package for all newly appointed headteachers
• R6 Provide schools with regular benchmarking data on staff attendance in line with Welsh Government guidance

Schools should:

• R7 Monitor the work of supply teachers regularly and ensure that all pupils continue to make appropriate progress when their usual classroom teacher is absent
• R8 Provide supply teachers with feedback on their performance
• R9 Ensure that supply teachers can always access teacher planning documents