Main responsibilities
- Manage reception, visitor sign-in and the office team.
- Maintain the admission register and support attendance registers and first-day calling.
- Keep pupil and staff records accurate in the management information system.
- Prepare data for the school census with the data manager or SBM.
- Manage parent communications, letters and the website's statutory information.
- Support pre-appointment checks and the single central record, where delegated.
- Process routine orders, invoices and trip payments.
Statutory duties and official sources
These duties belong to the school; office staff carry them out under delegation. England.
- Schools must keep an admission register and an attendance register; entries must be preserved for 6 years and amendments recorded with the original entry, reason, date and name. Source: Working together to improve school attendance, paragraphs 30–35; School Attendance (Pupil Registration) (England) Regulations 2024.
- Schools must maintain a single central record of pre-appointment checks. Source: KCSIE 2026, paragraphs 347–353.
- Hold more than one emergency contact number for each pupil where reasonably possible. Source: KCSIE 2026, paragraph 126.
- Schools must complete the school census each term. Source: Complete the school census; Education (Information About Individual Pupils) (England) Regulations 2013.
- Maintained schools must publish specified information online; academies must also publish specific information under their funding agreements, and DfE recommends further items. Source: DfE, What maintained schools must publish online; What academies and further education colleges must or should publish online.
- Staff who do not work directly with children should now also read KCSIE Part one. Source: KCSIE 2026, "School and college staff".
- Data protection duties apply to pupil and staff records. Source: DfE, Data protection in schools.
Key dates in the school year (2026 to 2027, England)
- 1 October 2026: autumn census day (return 28 October); 21 January 2027: spring (return 10 February); 20 May 2027: summer (return 16 June) (census dates). Maintained schools: the local authority may set earlier deadlines.
- 2 November 2026: FSM rechecks and new claims for the autumn census.
- Every Friday by 11.59pm: daily attendance data shared with DfE where required (Share your daily school attendance data).
- Start of year: website statutory information checked.
Common challenges and good practice
- Front-line safeguarding. Office staff often take the first call or see the first sign of concern; make sure they know how to reach the DSL.
- Register amendments. Routine changes to attendance entries should be limited to cases where the reason for absence could not be established when the register was taken and the entry later needs correcting. Any amendment must show the original entry, the amended entry, the reason, the date and who made it (paragraph 35).
- Separation of duties. Avoid one person controlling both ordering and payment.
