Year Heads and Attendance Officers play a crucial role in supporting student wellbeing, monitoring attendance, and maintaining clear communication with parents. Whether you are responsible for a specific year group or overseeing attendance across the entire school, the Unique Schools system provides you with the tools to manage these responsibilities efficiently and securely.
This guide outlines your key responsibilities, available features, and best practices to help you get the most from the system.
Important Note
If you require Year Head or Attendance access, please contact our team at staffsupport@uniqueschools.ie
Your Main Responsibilities
1. Attendance Monitoring & Management
Core Tasks
- Year Heads are typically responsible for monitoring and following up on unexplained absences for students in their assigned year.
- In schools without Year Head-led attendance, an Attendance Officer or a member of the senior leadership team usually manages this process.
Tools You’ll Use
The Attendance Dashboard allows you to:
- View absences and lates
- Search, filter, and manage notes efficiently
-
View real-time data across the school
📘 Help Guide on Attendance Overview
2. Sending Personal Notifications (PN)
When to Use
Use Personal Notifications instead of email for:
- Attendance-related communication
- Behaviour alerts
- General updates to parents
Send to:
- Individual parents from the student profile
- Class groups
- Year groups
- Custom groups
Parents can reply to your messages in a threaded format similar to email if enabled before sending.
You can close off a conversation once it’s resolved.
📘 How to Send a Personal Notifications
3. Approving Permission To Leave (PTL) Notes
What to Know
Students cannot sign out unless their PTL note is approved.
Approval may be done by (based on school policy):
- Year Heads
- Attendance Officers
- Office staff
4. Attendance Alerts (TUSLA Notifications)
Depending on your school’s process, you may be responsible for sending alerts at key absence milestones (5/10/15/20 days).
How It Works
- Use the Dashboard to identify students reaching absence thresholds.
- Send bulk Personal Notifications to parents with the relevant notice.
📘 How to Send Attendance Alerts
5. Managing “Note from Parent” Submissions
Parents can send non-attendance notes such as:
- PE exemption
- Uniform issues
- Minor medical updates
- General queries
Your Responsibility
- Acknowledge or respond to these notes.
- Check them regularly to ensure parental communication is addressed.
📘 Help Guide on Note from Parent
6. Managing Detention
You may be tasked with setting up and managing student detention.
Detention Tools
- Create and add students to detention sessions.
- Use roll-call functionality to mark attendance.
- Automatically notify parents via bulk Personal Notifications.
- Easily move absent students onto the next Detention date.
7. Creating and Managing Forms
Year Heads often need to collect information/consent from parents.
Why Use Unique Schools Forms
- Keeps communication within the app
- Avoids confusion caused by external tools (Google Forms, Microsoft Forms)
- Supports the goal of a Single Point of Engagement
Use forms for:
- Parental consent
- Policy acknowledgement
- Surveys or questionnaires