Last week's attendance data made for uncomfortable reading. The absence rate across all schools rose to 6.93% in 2025/26, higher than the pre-pandemic baseline of 4.73% in 2018/19. Nearly one in five pupils missed at least 10% of school. 

The government's response is to make it personal. Every mainstream state school in England will now receive its own individual attendance improvement target, monitored for the first time. Not a national average to aim vaguely towards, but your school, your numbers.

What the targets are and what they are not

The new Attendance Baseline Improvement Expectations (ABIEs) set minimum improvement expectations year by year, calibrated using AI against an individual school's previous attendance and benchmarked against similar schools. They are contextualised, achievable, and they are a floor, not a ceiling.

There are no immediate penalties for missing your target. Schools that fall short will hear from the DfE and be pointed towards best practice guidance or a local Attendance and Behaviour Hub. A phone call and a nudge is not quite the stuff of sleepless nights, but do not mistake a light touch at the outset for low-stakes consideration. Consistent underperformance will be escalated, and the Ofsted picture means scrutiny is rising regardless.

One practical point: you can access your ABIE through your similar schools report on View Your Own Data (VYED), which now names higher-performing schools in your cohort. The DfE will tell you who it thinks is doing it better than you, in comparable circumstances. Use that as proactively as possible, it will be a less comfortable document to read if you are unprepared for what it says.

The legal position has not changed; but the scrutiny has increased

Schools and academy trusts already have legal duties under the Education Act 1996 to keep accurate registers, report absences, and work with local authorities on enforcement. The July 2026 updated statutory guidance on Working Together to Improve School Attendance tightens expectations in several areas. Two points are directly relevant to how schools will be assessed against their targets:

1. The register requirement: schools must take the attendance register at the same time for all registered pupils in both sessions. This is a legal duty, not a recommendation. If your MIS allows staggered registration, check before term starts how you will need to update your practice to ensure compliance. 
2. Fixed penalty notices: the 2024 framework remains in force. Schools do not issue FPNs directly but trigger them through referral to the local authority. Challenges from parents are rising, and the process is considerably smoother when schools can show a clear, consistent, well-documented decision trail.

What the new Ofsted framework means in practice

From September 2026, attendance sits within a dedicated attendance and behaviour judgement under the updated inspection toolkit. Three things stand out:

1. Context is no longer a defence on its own. Ofsted and the DfE have developed a statistical model grouping similar schools together. 'We have a challenging intake' is a reasonable starting point, but inspectors will want to know what you have done about it.
2. SEND pupils and pupils with EHCPs are explicitly named. Inspectors will assess whether leaders have worked with parents and the local authority to ensure suitable support is in place. If your SEND attendance data tells a different story to your whole-school figure, that gap will prompt questions.
3. Young carers are now explicitly named as a cohort requiring targeted monitoring. If your pastoral leads cannot currently identify your young carers, that is worth addressing before term starts.

Fridays in the spotlight

Illness absence is almost a quarter higher on Fridays. The minister has commissioned further investigation, a helpful way of saying nobody has a definitive answer yet, although screen time, disrupted sleep and social media anxiety are all thought to be contributing factors. Some schools are already responding creatively by scheduling high-engagement activities at the end of the week and shifting less popular fixtures to earlier in the week. If your timetable treats Friday as a wind-down, unfortunately some pupils and parents will treat it as optional.

What to do before September

Many schools are already doing a great deal of this. The point is not to add to an already long list, but to make sure the right things are on it.

On your ABIE target

• Find out what your target is and how it was calculated. If it looks wrong for your context, query it early rather than six months in.
• Access your similar schools report and identify which schools the DfE is benchmarking you against.
• If you think you are likely to be off-track, contact your local Attendance and Behaviour Hub now. Being proactive is always better than waiting for the DfE to call first.

On your data

• Do a data audit before term starts: where is absence clustering, by year group, by pupil characteristic, by day of the week?
• Make sure your SEND attendance data is visible alongside your whole-school figure and that you can explain the gap.
• Add young carers to your attendance monitoring dashboard if they are not already there.

On your policies and practice

• Check your MIS: registers must be taken at the same time for all pupils in both sessions. If your system does not support that, it is a legal compliance issue that needs addressing.
• Review your leave of absence policy and remove any blanket provisions. Every application must be considered on its own merits with the reasoning documented.
• Check that any pupil on a remote education arrangement has a live, documented reintegration plan.

On governance

This applies equally to maintained school governors and to academy trustees/directors, though the accountability structures differ. Passive receipt of a single attendance figure once a term will not be sufficient this year. Inspectors will be testing whether governance bodies are exercising genuine oversight (including trends by pupil group and by day of the week) and whether that scrutiny is actively influencing intervention. Boards need to be asking challenging questions and interrogating the data presented, and the answers need to be on record.

A final word

Speaking to the Times, Paul Whiteman of the NAHT was direct: schools already go above and beyond, but attendance is not a problem they can solve alone, and government targets will not fix it. He is right, and the minister's own acknowledgement that "attendance isn't just an education issue" sits in some tension with a policy that places school-specific targets front and centre.

But the legal reality is straightforward. Statutory duties do not pause for difficult circumstances. Registers must be accurate, policies must be defensible, and decisions must be documented. The schools that fare best when the DfE comes calling will be those that can demonstrate they understood their obligations, acted on them, and have the paperwork to prove it. Like any good student, the work done over the summer will show when term begins.