The short answers
What does an education welfare officer do?
An education welfare officer works with families whose children's attendance is a concern, to understand the barriers and help remove them, and works with the school and other services. Many are part of the local authority's attendance team; some schools also commission one directly. Where support has not worked or has not been engaged with, they may be involved in the formal and legal steps that follow.
What does a school attendance officer do?
An attendance officer usually handles attendance day to day inside the school: first-day calls when a child is absent, following up unexplained absence, keeping the register codes right and working with families. The DfE expects a school's attendance policy to name who parents should contact about attendance day to day, and who for more detailed support.
What is a School Attendance Support Team?
Under the DfE's statutory guidance, every local authority is expected to have a School Attendance Support Team that works with all schools in its area, free of charge. It provides communication and advice, Targeting Support Meetings with each school, access to whole-family support, and legal intervention where voluntary support has not worked. The guidance does not require a particular name, so in some areas it is still called the education welfare service.
What is a Targeting Support Meeting?
A regular conversation between a school and its named contact in the local authority's attendance team, using the school's attendance data to identify pupils and groups at risk of poor attendance and to agree what each will do.
What helps the meeting go well
A Targeting Support Meeting turns on the school's data. These are the things worth bringing.
Who is at risk, and why
Pupils below target or heading for persistent absence, with the patterns that might explain it, such as a weekday, the afternoons or a run of illness.
What has already been tried
Each contact with home, dated, with who it was with and what was agreed, so the meeting starts from the record rather than from memory.
Who is close to the penalty notice threshold
Counted over the exact ten school weeks, so the family can be offered support long before a fine is ever discussed.
Who has come back up
Pupils whose attendance has recovered, which is the evidence that the support is working.
Where this comes from
- Working together to improve school attendanceThe DfE's statutory guidance, 2026 edition: what schools, trusts and local authorities are expected to do.
Related guides: the senior attendance champion, the ten-week duty, improving attendance in schools. Every guide is listed on the guides page.
Access for your education welfare officer
adsum gives an education welfare officer, from the local authority or commissioned by the school, their own sign-in, with an end date the school sets, the contact record for each pupil, and a report for the meeting. The school invites them and can end their access at any time.
Or ask us for a trial on your own school's data.