Home visits play a vital role in supporting student attendance and wellbeing.
They enable schools to maintain contact with families, understand barriers to attendance, and provide timely, personalised support - especially when communication through other channels has been unsuccessful.
Why Schools Carry Out Home Visits
UK school policies outline clear guidance for conducting safe, supportive home visits. These visits are used to:
• Address Attendance Concerns: Follow up on multiple days of unexplained absence (e.g., 3+ days).
• Respond to Safeguarding Concerns: Act promptly on any signs of potential harm or neglect.
• Improve Communication: Build face-to-face relationships with families who are hard to reach.
• Support Long-Term Absences: Keep in contact with students absent due to illness or other extended circumstances.
• Offer Family Support: Assist families facing challenges with routine or school readiness.
• Build Relationships: Strengthen trust between school, home, and student.
How Attend Supports Home Visits
Attend streamlines and supports the home visit process through smart automation, organisation, and documentation tools. Here's how:
Automatic Alerts for Visit Criteria
Using Absence Watch Signals, Attend can automatically notify the Attendance Team when a student meets your home visit criteria - for example:
• 5 consecutive days of absence (any code)
• 3 consecutive days of unauthorised absence (O code)
• Same-day alerts for absences among vulnerable pupils
Assign and Track Visits
Visits can be assigned to specific staff or teams. Outcomes, notes, and next steps are logged directly into the student’s record, ensuring a clear chronology of support and intervention.
Parent Communication Tools
Quickly send messages to parents to:
• Inform parents/carers of an upcoming visit
• Request a reason for absence
• Suggest a phone call as an alternative first step
All with full tracking and logging of readership; parents can also use the in-built language translation to read messages from school in other languages.
Map View & Route Planning
Use Map View to:
• Visualise student addresses for efficient route planning
• Generate printable A4 visit sheets with student photos, contact details and notes
Dedicated Home Visit Module
All home visits are centralised in one module, where schools can:
• Monitor visit status (e.g. planned, completed, follow-up needed)
• Record outcomes and safeguarding concerns
• Ensure no student or case is overlooked
A Safer, Smarter Way to Manage Home Visits
Attend helps schools deliver purposeful, well-documented home visits with minimal admin time and maximum impact. With intelligent triggers, communication tools and centralised logging, Attendance Teams can act swiftly and consistently - ensuring that students receive the care and support they need.
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