We have very good news regarding further improvement to our attendance rates for the academic year 2003/2004.

Overall attendance has improved by 0.68% to reach 93.84% . This represents the highest year increase we have recorded since 1997, and follows the 0.2% drop of last year.

Unauthorised absence has remained at 0.65%, whilst our priority to reduce authorised absence in this sector has been achieved with a substantial reduction of 0.68%.

This has been a year of additional activity in support of our primary schools, with the launch of Cool Cats and our additional targeted support for schools with less than 91% attendance.

The use of Primary School Attendance Audits, and linked support programmes appears to have been very successful with the targeted 42 schools achieving a more substantial improvement of 2.23%.

We are likely to now have only one primary school in the city recording less than 90% attendance (at 89.3%), and we will have a substantial increase in the number of schools with above 91% attendance.

Overall attendance has improved by 0.57% to reach 91.89% . This represents substantial and consistent year on year improvement since 1996.

Unauthorised Absence has increased by 0.09%, as we focus on ensuring more accurate recording, whilst Authorised Absence has again reduced by 0.66%.

We have focused additional effort in our Spotlight Campaigns in Secondary schools, and are moving forward our stronger policy regarding leave in term time.

It is also significant to see some improvement in our Special Schools attendance rates.

We have a 0.27% reduction in Unauthorised Absence, and a 0.13% reduction in Authorised Absence, raising the attendance rate by 0.4% to 87.38% .

We are delivering additional support to our Special Schools over the coming year in seeking to raise attendance levels.