Attendance data and what the office sees

Marks made at the door don't stay at the door. This article follows attendance data from the register into the rest of the system, and explains the one rule that keeps your numbers honest.

Where marks surface

• The Bookings hub filters by attendance (present, marked absent, unmarked) and by expected absence, so "who actually came to Tuesday's class?" is one filter (The bookings hub).
• Reports aggregate attendance by student, class and session, with CSV export (Reports and CSV export).
• Parents see Present, Late or Absent against past dates in My Account once marks exist.
• The audit log records every mark, clearance, register completion, reopening and walk-in, by person and time (The audit log).

The honest-numbers rule

An unmarked past session is never counted as attended. If a register wasn't completed, attendance reporting treats those students as absent rather than quietly assuming presence. This can make a lazy week's numbers look worse, and that's the point: attendance percentages you'd show a parent, a committee or a safeguarding review must be built only from marks somebody actually made. Late, by contrast, counts as attended; the child was there.

The practical consequence: chase incomplete registers, not for tidiness but for truth. The dashboard surfaces today's classes and their register state, so gaps are visible the same day.

Corrections

Teachers can amend their own register until midnight. After that, corrections are office work: staff with the amend permission open the past day's register and fix the mark, and the audit log keeps both the original and the correction attributed. "The register said absent but she was definitely there" is a thirty-second fix that leaves a paper trail, which is exactly what you want when attendance ever matters in a dispute.

Walk-ins and trials

Walk-ins marked at the door flow to the office flagged as such, joining the counts but clearly labelled. They're your follow-up list: a trial who came twice is a membership conversation, and a walk-in with no record is a records conversation. The register's office notes travel with the same submission, so the context arrives attached.