This article explains how to find unexplained absence codes (N codes) in attendance records. It details the necessary permissions, the steps to filter and report on N codes, and the significance of different absence mark colours. Additionally, it provides guidance on what actions to take after identifying these codes, including changing codes when appropriate.
When looking at attendance certificates, changing attendance marks or analysing attendance, you may come across N codes where the reason for the absence has not been provided.
In this article, we'll go through how to find all your unexplained absence N codes. If you instead want to find missing attendance where no mark was recorded, please see this article: Find and add missing attendance marks.
Permissions
To find attendance marks, you'll need the Attendance: Administer All Students permission. If you don't have this permission, ask your admin team to assign it to you.
Finding the N codes or other absence codes
From the same page as you can follow up with guardians from
You can report on students that have the No Reason (N) mark (or any other statistical absence attendance code) by heading to Students > Attendance > Absentee’s > Absentees by Date.
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.
Click into the filters. In the Specific Marks dropdown select the No Reason (N) mark, then Apply.
You'll then only see a report of the N codes.
What do the colours mean?
For the Mark column, orange marks are authorised absences, and red marks are unauthorised absences.
For the Days column, we will colour the cell in orange if the student was (or has been as of the filter date) absent for a single day.
From your raw attendance marks report
You can also report on students that have unexplained absences from Students > Attendance > Admin > Raw Attendance Marks and click into the filters at the top of the page.
In the Specific Marks dropdown select the No Reason (N) mark
What's next?
Now you've identified the N codes, you can take action with them. If no reason for an absence is provided after a reasonable amount of time, English schools are usually expected to change the N to O. For Welsh schools, see the government guidance on what marks to use here.
- You can see how to request information on the absences here: Following up on absences with guardians
- You can see how to change you N codes to O codes individually here: Updating the attendance mark
- Or in bulk here: Bulk editing attendance marks
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