Recording attendance for year 11s on Study Leave or students on Work Experience

Students on study leave in year 11 or on work experience should be marked with the S or W code in attendance registers, respectively. For students on Study Leave, you would mark them with an S until their official leaving date, which is set during the New School Year Setup process. This allows for early setup before their departure. Planned absences can be used to pre-fill the S or W marks for these students, and lessons should be suspended to automatically open registers.

For year 11s who are going on study leave, they should be marked in registers with the S code only until they officially leave the school. The leaving date is input when completing Step 2 of the New School Year Setup process. When completing this step, you'll need to add the leaving date in the future, which means you can complete the New School Year Setup before your year 11s actually leave the school.

You can see official guidance on page 82 of the DfE's Working together to improve school attendance guidance.

To ensure whole classes of students who are on work experience or study leave automatically get the correct marks:

• Use planned absences to add a pre-fill mark of S or W for all of the relevant students.
• If all students in a class or course are on Study Leave or Work Experience at the same time, we recommend suspending the lessons so the registers are automatically opened: Suspending classes and lessons. Note: If you do not suspend the registers before the lessons start, you will need to manually open the relevant registers to pull through the planned absences.