Webinar: What Danish Schools Can Learn from England’s Attendance Challenges
How can schools improve attendance, identify pupils at risk earlier, and build a culture where students want to show up?
Persistent absence and student disengagement remain major challenges across England. Many schools have systems that record attendance, but recording absence is not the same as understanding why students are missing education — or knowing how to intervene earlier.
On 3 June, Attender and safeguarding consultant Phillip Painter invite Danish education leaders to a focused 1-hour webinar exploring how attendance is handled in England, and what Danish schools can learn from the English experience.
Phillip works nationally with schools, multi-academy trusts and local authorities, supporting safeguarding, attendance and culture-of-safety improvement. He is also a former multi-academy trust lead for attendance, where he led attendance strategy across 17 schools.
In this session, Phillip will share practical insights from England, including how schools use policy, inspection frameworks, data, incentives and early intervention to strengthen attendance practice.
What we will cover
The attendance landscape in England
Key statutory expectations, national priorities and how the policy context has developed.
Ofsted and inspection expectations
How attendance is evaluated within the inspection framework, and what inspectors look for in leadership, systems and culture.
Post-COVID attendance trends
How patterns of absence have changed since the pandemic, including persistent absence and vulnerable student groups.
Motivation, incentives and reward systems
How English schools use recognition, praise, positive reinforcement and whole-school reward structures to support attendance, routine and belonging.
Using data to intervene earlier
How schools can move beyond simple registration and use attendance data to identify risk, target support and strengthen collaboration.
This webinar is designed for Danish school leaders, education managers, student support teams and policymakers who want practical inspiration from England’s approach to attendance and absence reduction. And yes it is free to participate.
