Local authorities and schools that commission alternative provision increasingly ask for attendance “against entitled hours” rather than a simple percentage of sessions. If your registers are on paper or spread across spreadsheets, producing that figure accurately for every pupil, every half term, can take days.
To calculate attendance against entitled hours, divide the hours a pupil actually attended by the hours they were entitled to in the same period, then multiply by 100. Exclude weeks your setting was closed, and report hours offered alongside hours attended so provision gaps are not mistaken for pupil absence.
What are entitled hours, and where do they come from?
Entitled hours are the hours of education a pupil should receive each week, normally set out in the placement agreement with the commissioning school or local authority. They are a local, contractual figure, not a term defined in national attendance regulations.
The DfE’s guidance on arranging alternative provision says local authorities must arrange suitable full-time education for children who would not otherwise receive it. It notes that the law does not define “full-time”, and that this may not mean the same number of hours as school; one-to-one tuition, for example, may be more intensive. Where a pupil is on a part-time timetable in AP, the guidance expects a clearly defined plan and timeline for returning to full-time education. That is exactly why commissioners want to see hours: they need to know whether each pupil is getting the education that was agreed.
How is it different from a normal attendance percentage?
Registered schools record attendance in sessions: a morning and an afternoon register, using the statutory codes set out in Working together to improve school attendance. When a school places a pupil in off-site provision, the school records that on its own register, and the guidance says arrangements should be in place for the provider to tell the school about any absence.
An hours-based measure is different, and more useful for AP, because:
- Sessions at your setting may not map neatly onto school mornings and afternoons.
- Pupils often attend for a few hours rather than a full session.
- Many pupils are on reduced or phased timetables, so a “full” week is different for each person.
You are not replacing the school’s statutory register; you are giving the commissioner an accurate picture of the hours that actually happened.
What is the formula?
There are three numbers worth recording for each pupil and period:
- Entitled hours: what the placement says they should receive.
- Hours offered: what you actually timetabled for them.
- Hours attended: what they actually attended, from your registers.
From these you get three percentages:
- Attendance against entitled hours = hours attended ÷ entitled hours × 100
- Attendance against hours offered = hours attended ÷ hours offered × 100
- Provision against entitlement = hours offered ÷ entitled hours × 100
The first is usually what commissioners ask for. The other two explain it.
Can you show a worked example?
Take an AP provider with 40 pupils across two sites. One pupil, referred by the local authority, is entitled to 15 hours a week. Because of a phased start, the provider timetables 12 hours a week for the first half term, which runs for six weeks.
- Entitled hours: 15 × 6 = 90 hours
- Hours offered: 12 × 6 = 72 hours
- Hours attended (from registers): 54 hours
So:
- Attendance against entitled hours: 54 ÷ 90 × 100 = 60%
- Attendance against hours offered: 54 ÷ 72 × 100 = 75%
- Provision against entitlement: 72 ÷ 90 × 100 = 80%
Reported alone, 60% looks alarming. Reported with the other two figures, the story is clearer: the pupil attended three quarters of what was offered, and the phased timetable accounts for the rest. Both points are worth discussing with the commissioner, but they need different actions.
What are the common mistakes?
- Counting holiday weeks. If the setting is closed, those hours were never available. Leave them out of the entitled total.
- Recording sessions, not hours. A two-hour session and a four-hour session are not equal. Record the length of each timetabled slot.
- Rounding partial attendance to zero or full. If a pupil arrived an hour late for a three-hour session, record two hours if your agreement counts partial attendance.
- Using an old entitlement. Entitled hours often rise as a pupil settles in. Keep the current figure on the pupil record and note the date it changed.
- Mixing up reasons. A pupil absent because a taxi did not arrive is different from one who refused to come. Recording a reason every time helps you and the commissioner act on it.
- Building it by hand. Every manual step, from copying registers to adding up columns, is a chance for error.
What should you do with the figures?
A percentage is only useful if it leads to action. Review hours attended every week, not just at report time. Look for a pupil whose attendance is falling, a particular day that keeps going wrong, or a gap between offered and entitled hours that has lasted longer than planned. Our guide to attendance tracking in alternative provision covers how to build that routine.
How PupilDB helps
In PupilDB, each pupil record holds their entitled hours, and registers are built from your weekly timetable, so staff mark attendance against the slots each pupil was actually timetabled for. The attendance against entitled hours report then works from what was recorded on the day, with absence reasons from your own list. See registers and attendance and reports for more.
