Attendance Officers or Office Managers can use this guide to;
- View/Export or Print a List of Attendance Marks
- Create a New Mark
- Enable/Disable Marks for Teacher Registers
- Display a Colour for a Mark
- Protect a Mark
- Define a Mark as Physically Present
- Export Mark
- Validation Checks in Registers
Access: The permissions required to follow this guide are found in the Attendance Module of Config>Setup>Roles & Permissions.
See also: How to Add a New Attendance Sub Code, How to Distribute Attendance Codes and Subcodes from within Vision and Attendance.
Further Guidance
DfE guidance on School Attendance can be found here.
For information on 24/25 DfE Attendance Code Changes see Attendance Code Changes
View/Export or Print a list of Attendance Marks
Go to Config>Attendance>Attendance Codes.
Use the Academic Year drop down to choose the relevant Academic Year.
Note: This defaults to the Current Academic Year.
Use the Grid Actions to Copy, Export in Excel or CSV Format or Print the list of Attendance Codes.
Click on the Column Headings in the Table to Sort the Table.
Create a New Mark
From the Attendance Codes page select New.
Note: Only the following 5 marks 7,8,A,F and H are available when creating a New Mark.
Select a mark from the drop down.
In this example the mark F has been created to define when a student is present but has forgotten a PE Kit for a Physical Education Lesson.
In this example the F mark as been ticked as Physically Present, is Protected and Include in Teacher Register.
Export Mark: enter the relevant corresponding mark to be used for Census to reflect the appropriate DfE School Attendance Code. In this example for the F code the Export Mark is / – Present.
Click Create to Save the New Mark.
Enable/Disable Marks for Teacher Registers
Use this process to define which marks are available to teachers when Taking a Register. See How to Take a Register.
In the example a teacher has marked a student absent in error and then changes this a present mark, the system will let them do this as it’s assuming that the student is ‘at front of the teacher’ so the student needs to be marked present.
In this example the Attendance Code H, Family Holiday Agreed has been selected, note in the column Enable for Teacher Registers this code is defined as No.
Click on a single code and select Edit. In this example Mark H has been selected.
In the Edit Attendance Code box note the Include in Teacher Register is not ticked.
This means when Taking a Register if a member of staff chooses this mark a warning pop up ‘Action Needed’ will let them know this is not a valid mark.
Note the Mark, Mark Name, Mark Description and Meaning are all greyed out as this is a DFE defined code and hence these fields cannot be edited. See DFE School Attendance Guidance.
Display a Colour for a Mark
Use this process to define a colour for a mark, this will be visible in the Manage Attendance Page and on the Student List Page under Actions>Attendance.
From the Attendance Codes page select a single Mark and click Edit.
Click on the Display Colour drop down to choose the colour for this code, click Apply and Save.
This colour will be visible in the Manage Attendance from Config>Attendance>Manage Attendance and visible from the Student List Page when choosing Actions>Attendance.
Protect a Mark
Protected Mark: If this is selected then the mark can only be amended to a mark that is a present mark in the Teacher Register.
Note: It is not possible to completely lock a mark, preventing a Teacher from making any changes. Even if the code is protected, a Teacher can still change the mark to a code with a Present Meaning.
In this example the Present Mark / is ticked as a Protected Mark.
From the Attendance Codes page select a single mark and click Edit.
If a teacher attempts to amend this to a mark in the Teacher Register that doesn’t have the Present Meaning then a warning pop up will appear.
Note: The mark can however be amended in the Manage Attendance page by staff with the appropriate permissions.
Define a Mark as Physically Present
Use this process when creating a new Attendance Mark to define as Physically Present.
Note for the 3 DFE defined Marks /, \ and L, which all mean present all have Physically Present ticked by default.
Export Mark
Use this function to define Export Marks for the Census. In this example a new Mark K has been created with the Export Mark / = present.
Validation Checks in Registers
June 2024 Update
This function was created to address the potential safeguarding issue where an Admin/Attendance Officer and a Teacher are both entering Attendance Marks into the same register at the same time.
Previously, if the Admin/Attendance Officer enters a Protected Mark, the Teacher is unaware and can unintentionally overwrite the existing entry in the register, and vice versa.
The solution will implement a database-level check without changing the behaviours of how Marks are entered into registers.
All Attendance Marks entered by the Teacher will now be checked at a database-level to see if any Attendance Marks have already been entered by the Admin/Attendance Officer. We will then perform validation checks to either allow the Teacher’s Marks to remain or overwrite them with the existing Admin/Attendance Officer’s Marks. The validation rules are explained below.
- A check has been implemented when a Teacher enters an Attendance Mark in the register to verify if a Protected Mark has already been entered by the Admin/Attendance Officer .
- An existing Protected Mark will only be overwritten if the Teacher enters a Present Mark. This is current functionality.
- If a Teacher attempts to change an existing Protected Mark to a non-Present Mark, they will be notified that the change is not allowed. (See screenshots below). Instead, the existing Protected Mark entered by the Admin/Attendance Officer will appear on the Teacher’s register.
- In Primary (new and old UI) and Secondary (new UI) registers, the validation check will be performed each time a Teacher enters an Attendance Mark and the notification will read ‘While the register was open, the attendance mark was updated’:
- In Primary photo view and Secondary (old UI) registersthe validation check will be performed each time the user clicks the Save button and the notification will read ‘While the register was open, the attendance mark was updated’ and will list the Student names that have an existing Protected Mark:
Note: When registers are open simultaneously by both the Teacher and the Admin/Attendance Officer, as part of this implementation, the Teacher will not see a warning message if they overwrite the Admin/Attendance Officer’s Mark with a Present Mark. Please bear in mind this also applies to the Mark All As Present button.
However, as part of the existing functionality, if the Admin/Attendance Officer enters a Protected Mark and saves the register, and a Teacher later attempts to overwrite this Protected Mark, the Teacher will see a warning message.
Note: This validation check has not been implemented in Students > Student List > Actions > Attendance register.