This article explains how to follow up on student absences with guardians using the Absentees By Date page. It details the permissions required, how to view and filter absences, send communications to guardians, log follow-up calls, and update attendance marks. The process includes identifying authorised and unauthorised absences, sending messages, and managing replies.
You can see all students who have been given a particular mark, follow up on their absences with guardians, and amend the mark, all from one central page! To do this, go to Students > Attendance > Absentees > Absentees By Date.
Permissions
You'll need the Attendance: Administer All students permission to access and use this page. If you don't have the permission, you'll need to ask your admin team to give you permission using these instructions.
Top Tip: Staff don't need to be a permitted sender of the communication type to follow up with guardians from this page.
Using the page
This table will automatically display today's absences, but you can select a different date range using the filters at the top of the page. Orange marks are authorised absences, and red marks are unauthorised absences.
You can also choose to narrow down your report to only certain attendance codes - more information on this here: Report to find Unexplained Absences (N codes)
How does the Lessons column work?
Entire Day - The number of absence marks the student has been given is equal to the number of lessons they were scheduled to be in that day.
A count (e.g. 1/7 lessons) - The student is absent for at least one session, and present for at least one other session, so we show a count of the total sessions they were absent.
Not arrived - There are two reasons for this:
- The student is absent for some sessions, and is not physically present for any other sessions in the day (for example, marked with N for registration, I or X for all other lessons).
- The number of absence marks the student has been given is greater than the number of lessons they were scheduled to be in that day. This can occur when a student is scheduled to be in more than one lesson at the same time.
Following up on the absence
To send a communication to guardians of the absent students, select the tick boxes next to the students and click the Bulk action button.
In the slide over you can see:
- Any guardians the follow-up message will be sent to
- Any guardians that have no contact details recorded and need updating
- The message templates displayed. These can be edited by going to School > Communications > Templates and amending the Absentee Follow-up template.
Top Tip: Want to send the follow-up via email or SMS instead? Follow these instructions to change the contract preferences for the guardian.
Once you have checked this information, click the Send Message to Primary Guardians button. For a message to be sent, the guardian must have an email address or mobile number logged on their Guardian Profile. For more information on guardian types, take a look at this article.
When you have followed up with guardians, this will display in the Follow-up column.
How do replies work?
When an email is sent from this page and parent emails back, the reply will be sent to the inbox of the school's default email address.
If a parent, staff member or student replies to an SMS, Arbor identifies the phone number and automatically redirects the SMS into the school’s communications log. You’ll be able to see any replies to messages by going to the student’s Student Profile > Communications & Notes.
Logging a call
You can also log that you’ve followed up by phone call by clicking the individual student. Scroll down to the bottom of the slide over, add in the notes, then click Log Follow-up Call.
This call log will then display in the Follow-up column. You’ll also be able to see this log in the Communications & Notes section of the Student Profile.
Updating the attendance mark
If you need to amend an attendance mark when you’ve contacted the guardian and they’ve provided more details, you can amend marks directly from the Absentees by date page! Click the student then click the mark to amend it, or click the green button to Record planned absence.
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