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FFT Attendance Tracker Guidance

Overview

Aspire Attendance Tracker is a brand new system from FFT. It allows you to analyse and track your own school's attendance including the impact of Covid-19. Most importantly, it enables you to compare and monitor your school against other FFT schools nationally on a week-by-week basis. This guidance document will take you through all the key features and reports of the new system.

Important - before you get started

The first release of the system is a beta version. Please read through the guidance document before starting to use the system and in particular the following points:

1. We’ll be updating and improving the site on a regular basis. You should therefore expect to see changes to reports or even new reports appearing from time to time.

2. Initially, the reports are for internal school use only and should not be published externally. 3. As the site is still in the development phase, please take additional care when using the

reports and data. 4. If you do have any issues or find possible data errors relating to your school then please do

contact support@fft.org.uk to let us know. However, please be aware that as we are in the development phase, we may not be able to solve every specific issue or answer all queries. Generally, we will collate school issues and use this information to make ongoing changes to the site.

5. If you do have any feedback on the site generally (good or not so good), how to improve reports or additional data/reports you’d like to see, then we’d love to hear from you. Again, please email our support team support@fft.org.uk to do this.

6. Finally, when using the site we strongly recommend that you use Google Chrome. This will provide the most stable environment during the early development period.

How to access Attendance Tracker

You can access Attendance Tracker by using the link below. You’ll need your regular Aspire username and password to log in: https://fftaspire.org/app/attendancetracker/

Once logged in, you’ll be taken to the new Attendance Tracker homepage. The homepage includes two tabs – Attendance home and Attendance reports and two buttons – Attendance reports and Guidance. You can use either the tab or button to access your attendance reports.

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Attendance Tracker reporting

Overview

When you click on Attendance reports, a new report screen will appear. There are 10 reports in total – 9 attendance reports and 1 data checking report. Click on the tabs to move from one report to another and use the arrow buttons at either end to reveal more reports.

Week Periods

Each report is split into weekly periods with the latest 8-week period shown by default. You can change to a previous period simply by clicking the Period filter. The dates shown are ‘week-ending’. For example, Week 13 is the week ending Friday 27 November (i.e. Mon 23 Nov to Fri 27 Nov).

Data collection

Data is collected daily from each school’s MIS via Aspire Data Exchange. All Attendance Tracker reports are then refreshed on a weekly basis with the previous week’s data available each Wednesday.

COVID (X) filter

The attendance data included in reports can be shown in 3 separate ways. These are based on how you choose to show pupils affected by the impact Covid-19 - for example, where pupils are sent home as part of a bubble affected by a possible Covid case and marked as ‘X’. The 3 variants are as follows:

1 Exclude all sessions marked as ‘X’ from reports (default)

2 Treat ‘X’ marks as ‘Absent’ and include in reports

3 Treat ‘X’ marks as ‘Present’ and include in reports.

The covid (x) selection may have a significant impact on your report data. You can change the selection at any time using the Covid (X) filter.

Other filters

You will also find a number of other filters available on reports based on pupil context data. These include:

• Gender • FSM6 • SEN

You can use single filters or combinations of filters to change the attendance data shown on the reports.

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Reports available in Attendance Tracker

Report Description

Attendance Summary

This report shows a week-by-week summary of attendance for your school in comparison to other FFT schools (the ‘FFT national’).

Year Groups This report allows you to see the breakdown of attendance for different year groups within your school against other year groups nationally.

Pupil Groups This report allows you to see the breakdown of attendance for different pupil groups (gender, FSM6 & SEN) within your school.

Absence This report allows you to see the breakdown of absence by authorised, unauthorised, illness, unauthorised holiday and covid (X mark). The report can be shown for all year groups or individual year groups.

Pupil Summary This report allows you to see a weekly breakdown of attendance for individual pupils. The report can be shown for all year groups or individual year groups.

Pupil detail This report allows you to see a detailed breakdown of attendance marks recorded against individual pupils (present, absent, authorised, unauthorised etc).

Covid (X marks)

This report provides a side by side comparison of all 3 attendance views - where Covid (X marks) are excluded from calculations, where Covid (X marks) are included as absent and where Covid (X marks) are included as present. A separate stacked bar chart breaks down attendance by present, absent and Covid (X marks).

Attendance Summary (Covid)

This report is an extended version of the basic Attendance Summary report and includes additional weekly summary covid data.

Year Groups (Covid) This report allows you to see the breakdown of attendance for different year groups within the school. This version also shows the number and percentage of pupils who have at least 1 Covid (X mark) for each week.

Data Check

This report is useful for checking your background attendance data. It includes the total number of pupils for each week, the total marks, total present, total absent, total Covid (X marks) and the total not counted. The report can be shown for all year groups or individual year groups.

The following pages include further details about each individual report.

Apply filters to the school data by gender, FSM or SEN (national data remains static).

Choose the period of weeks you would like to view.

Number of pupils each week.

This allows you to decide how to count any Covid (X) marks. Three versions of the report are available:1) Standard which discounts X marks2) X treated as absent3) X treated as present

School attendance is based on the number of sessions attended divided by the possible number of sessions.

Calculation:

The difference between the school attendance figure and the FFT national attendance figure. Shaded circles indicate a difference between the school and the national data (dark green is shown for 4% + above the national, dark red for 4% + below the national).

4% or more above national4% or more below national

The chart shows the school data (pink line) and the national data (grey line). All weeks are displayed (not just the period selected).

School National

FFT national data is based on the number of sessions attended divided by the possible number of sessions for allparticipating schools.

Calculation:

Attendance SummaryThis report shows a breakdown of weekly attendance within the school compared to the FFT national for the same week. The school data can be filtered by gender, FSM and SEN (national figures are static in this report). The default view disregards any Covid (X marks) recorded against pupils, but this can be changed using the option at the top right to include either: Covid = Absent or Covid = Present

See all year groups combined or separate year groups (cohort numbers shown for the latest week for each year group).

Choose the period of weeks you would like to view.

Apply filters to the school data by gender, FSM or SEN.

This allows you to decide how to count any Covid (X) marks. Three versions of the report are available:1) Standard which discounts X marks2) X treated as absent 3) X treated as present

School attendance for each year group. Shaded circles indicate a difference between the school and the national data (dark green is shown for 4% + above the national, dark red for 4% + below the national).

4% or more above national4% or more below national

The chart shows the school data by year groups (pink line) and the national data (grey line). All weeks are displayed (not just the 8 week period selected).

School National

Calculation:

Year Groups ReportThis report allows you to see the breakdown of attendance for different year groups within the school and shows an indicator of if this attendance is above or below the same year group nationally. The school data can be filtered by gender, FSM and SEN (the national data remains static). The default version of the report excludes and Covid (X marks) from the calculations but can be changed to include X marks as either absent or present.

Filter to see pupil group data for individual year groups.

This allows you to decide how to count any Covid (X) marks. Three versions of the report are available: 1) Standard which discounts X marks2) X treated as absent 3) X treated as present

Choose the period of weeks you would like to view.

Pupil group attendance is displayed for the school and for some key pupil groups:• Gender• SEN • FSM6

Hovering over a school percentage displays the cohort size, school attendance and difference between the school group figure and the same group nationally.

4% or more above national group4% or more below national group

The chart shows the school data for pupil groups (pink line) and the national data for the same groups (grey line). All weeks are displayed (not just the period selected).

School National

Calculation:

Pupil Groups ReportThis report allows you to see the breakdown of attendance for different pupil groups (gender, FSM6 & SEN) within the school and shows an indicator of if this attendance is above or below the same pupil group nationally. The report can be shown for all year groups or individual year groups. The default version of the report excludes and Covid (X marks) from the calculations but can be changed to include X marks as either absent or present.

Apply filters to the school data by year group, gender, FSM or SEN.

This allows you to decide how to count any Covid (X) marks. Three versions of the report are available: 1) Standard which discounts X marks2) X treated as absent 3) X treated as present

Choose the period of weeks you would like to view.

School absence data for each week is shown overall and then broken down by:• Authorised Absence• Unauthorised Absence• Illness• Unauthorised Holiday• Covid (X marks)(National data is not displayed in the table).

Calculation:

The chart shows the school absence data and the national data for the same absence code (grey line). All weeks are displayed (not just the 8 week period selected).

School National

Absence ReportThis report allows you to see the breakdown of absence by authorised, unauthorised, illness, unauthorised holiday and Covid (X mark). The report can be shown for all year groups or individual year groups. The school data can be filtered by gender, FSM and SEN (the national data remains static).

Choose the period of weeks you would like to view.

This allows you to decide how to count any Covid (X) marks. Three versions of the report are available: 1) Standard which discounts X marks2) X treated as absent 3) X treated as present

Apply filters to the school data by gender, FSM or SEN (national data remains static).

All pupils shown initially, select year groups here.

Cumulative attendance figure for the year to date.

Calculation:

Weekly attendance shown for the period selected and for individual weeks.

Calculation:

Shaded circles on a green-red scale with the darkest green used to indicate 100%.

Pupil summary ReportThis report allows you to see a breakdown of attendance for individual pupils for each week. The report can be shown for all year groups or individual year groups. The school data can be filtered by gender, FSM and SEN (the national data remains static). The default version of the report excludes any Covid (X marks) from the calculations but can be changed to include X marks as either absent or present.

Choose the year group to then select the individual pupil you wish to look at or select pupils from the alphabetical drop down to the right.

Choose the period of weeks you would like to view.

Chart shows an individual pupil summary of attendance, absence and reasons for absence in the period selected.

An at a glance overview of an individual pupil’s attendance for the period selected against the weekly FFT national average.

School National

Pupil’s name, year group & gender displayed.

Pupil Details reportThis report allows you to see a detailed breakdown of attendance marks recorded against individual pupils (present, absent, authorised absence, unauthorised absence etc).

This displays attendance on a weekly basis and shows the difference in the 3 different methodologies of counting the Covid ‘X’ mark:1) Standard which discounts X marks2) X treated as absent or 3) X treated as present.

This stacked bar chart allows you to see the overall and weekly attendance statistics broken down by:PresentAbsent Covid (mark X)

Covid (X Mark) ReportThis report allows you to see attendance for the school in a chart with 3 views. The default view where Covid (X marks) are excluded from calculations, where Covid (X marks) are included as absent and where Covid (X marks) are included as present. A stacked bar chart breaks down attendance by present, absent and Covid (X marks).

Choose the period of weeks you would like to view.

This allows you to decide how to count any Covid (X) marks. Three versions of the report are available: 1) Standard which discounts X marks2) X treated as absent 3) X treated as present

Apply filters to the school data by gender, FSM or SEN (national data remains static).

Number of pupils in each week.

Number and percentage of pupils with Covid mark (X) in each week

Calculation:

The chart shows the school data (pink line) and the national data (grey line). All weeks are displayed (not just period selected).

School NationalThis shows the percentage of Covid marks on a weekly basis.

The difference between the school attendance and the FFT national. Shaded circles indicate a difference between the school and the national data (dark green is shown for 4% + above the national, dark red for 4% + below the national).

4% or more above national4% or more below national

School attendance is based on the number of sessions attended divided by the possible number of sessions.

FFT national data is based on the number of sessions attended divided by the possible number of sessions.

Attendance summary Report (Covid)This report shows a summary of weekly attendance for the school compared to the FFT national for the same week with a difference between the two. The school data can be filtered by gender, FSM and SEN (the national data remains static). The default version of the report excludes Covid (X marks) from the calculations but this can be changed to include Covid (X marks) as either absent or present. An additional chart shows the number of Covid (X marks) for each week.

Choose the period of weeks you would like to view.

Apply filters to the school data by gender or FSM or SEN (national data remains static).

This allows you to decide how to count any Covid (X) marks. Three versions of the report are available:1) Standard which discounts X marks2) X treated as absent 3) X treated as present

This shows the percentage of Covid marks by year group on a weekly basis.

The chart shows the school data (pink line) and the national data (grey line). All weeks are displayed (not just the period selected).

School National

Shaded circles indicate a difference between the school and the national data (dark green is shown for 4% + above the national, dark red for 4% + blow the national) / the darker shades indicate wider differences.

4% or more above national4% or more below national

See all year groups combined or separate year groups (cohort numbers from the latest week shown for each year group).

Calculation:

Year Groups report (inc Covid X Chart)This report allows you to see the breakdown of attendance for different year groups within the school and shows if this attendance is above or below the same year group nationally. This version also shows the number and percentage of pupils who have at least 1 Covid (X mark) for each week. The school data can be filtered by gender, FSM and SEN (the national data remains static). The default version of the report excludes Covid (X marks) from the calculations but this can be changed to include X marks as either absent or present.

Choose the period of weeks you would like to view.

Shows all pupils but you can choose individual year groups.

Total Absence shows the difference between the number of present marks (‘Total Present’) and the number of possible marks (‘Total Marks’).

Shows individual year groups and the impact of Covid over the period selected.

This shows the number of Covid and ‘Not counted’ marks on the Total Absence figure.

Number of pupils Total marks availableCovid (X marks)

Attendance Data Check & Quality Assurance ReportThis report has a chart and table that enables you to quickly see the total number of pupils for each week, the total marks, total present, total absent, total Covid (X marks) and the total not counted. The report can be shown for all year groups or individual year groups.

Attendance ScreenshotsAttendance Tracker Guidance V1.0