Attendance Management Plan (AMP) in Hero

Note: Features in this article will only be available in NZ MOE schools.  

This article was designed in collaboration with the Ministry of Education to help schools monitor attendance patterns, identify students who meet thresholds, and record steps taken to support improved engagement.

This feature has 4 fundamental functions:

• IDENTIFY - Clearly identify students with diminishing attendance rates, either individually or via any Hero group.
• ACT & RECORD - Take action to set the student on the path to success. Keep a comprehensive record of actions taken.
• COMMUNICATE - Communicate actions and expectations with staff and caregivers via Hero's post-based platform.
• REPORTING - A daily upload of AMP data is automatically sent to the MoE.

UNDERSTANDING AMP THRESHOLDS

Before you begin, it is important to understand the AMP Thresholds.   

• Thresholds are on a Term by Term basis. Absent code counts are reset to 0 at the start of each term.
• More than one AMP threshold may be crossed within a term.
• Thresholds utilise the calculated day code and are accumulated per 1/2 day.

• Levels and colours have been set by the Ministry of Education and are not adjustable by the school.  View the key to identify the threshold ranges and colours 

  

• A designated staff member will receive a daily email notification showing all students who have crossed a threshold.

SETTING AMP OPTIONS

Several options need to be set up to enhance the use of this feature. Only staff with Administrator access can amend AMP options.

1. Navigate to the Administration menu. If you have a wide-screen device this will already be visible on the left-hand side of your screen. If not, click on the Administration menu icon at the top left-hand side of your screen.

2. Under the heading Options select Basic Options

3.  Scroll to Attendance Management Plan (AMP)

4.  Enter the email address of the staff member who is to receive a daily email notification of students who have changed thresholds in either direction.  

Save your change by clicking the Green Save icon. 

Note: The ability to enter multiple email addresses is under development.

5.  The MoE has developed a set of Response Activity Configuration categories. Within each category any staff member with Administrator access is able to add specific school-based responses. These are selected when adding a response entry to an individual student.

6.  Click ADD to create a new response action.  

7.  Click the Pencil icon to edit an existing response action.

8.  Click the Trash icon to delete an option.  (This will not affect any response that has used it previously)
 

IDENTIFY

To enable analysis via ANY Hero group, the AMP feature exists under Group > Insights > Attendance.

1. Navigate to your class or group page by clicking on Groups and Classes followed by the group type e.g. CLASS, AUTO, MY and SHARED

2. Under the class or group, click the pop up menu

Note: if you are already in your class/group page, you can click on the pop up menu icon at the top left-hand side of your screen

3. Click on INSIGHTS

4. Click on ATTENDANCE 

 

5.  Scroll down to Attendance Management Plan. Here you will see the AMP view for this group of student, which is the main monitoring screen for AMP.

From this view, you can see for each student:

• Previous term AMP threshold
• Current term AMP threshold
• Current term absence code summary
• Days absent (per term and year-to-date)
• Date the threshold crossed from one to another in the current term (if applicable)
• Last response activity
• Last activity completed date 

6.  Use filtering tools to quickly find students at each threshold.

7.  Review their AMP information directly from the list. This allows you to prioritise which students need attention i.e. Are they approaching or have crossed a threshold (sort by date, absence rates for the term); view the most recent response activity recorded.
 

ACT & RECORD

Once a student is identified as needing attendance related action, this needs to be carried out on the individual student.   

1. Find the student using one of the search tools available.

2. Click on the student profile image, or the Attendance icon (tick).

3.  The lower half of the screen, below the mini maps, will toggle between the Attendance Management Plan and the Attendance Calendar.   

If the calendar is showing, click VIEW ATTENDANCE MANAGEMENT PLAN to view the AMP data.   

To return to the calendar click VIEW CALENDAR.

4.  View the relevant attendance data that determined the current threshold. This data is the same as that shown in the group table.

5.  Below the table, you will see all responses previously sent. The Response Activity Summary has filtering and sorting features to provide greater analysis. If your staff access is sensitive or greater, click Show Notes to view any sensitive notes relating to the activity.

6.  Determine if a new response action is required for this student. If so, initiate the response.  

On completion, click RECORD RESPONSE ACTIVITY to create an electronic record of the response.

7.  Complete the required fields

• Activity Complete Data - the date the action was completed e.g. meeting held, letter sent etc
• Activity Completed By - select the staff member (s) who completed the activity
• Response Activity - Tap the spacebar to select the response activity category from the MoE list (this is the list under Basic Options)
• Detail (optional) - Tap the spacebar to select one of the preset details for the category selected.   You can alternatively, manually type your own detail
• Notes (optional) - Type any additional notes that you would like recorded against this response activity
• Hide Notes - If the notes entered are sensitive, you can choose to hide them from view for any staff member with a Standard or Restricted page access level.

8.  It is possible to attach documents to a response. This may be an individual plan or discussion minutes etc. Add a document in the same way as you would when adding a student post or community notice.

9.  Click SAVE when all details have been entered.

10.  Click the Pencil icon to edit a response.

11.  Click the Trash icon to delete a response.   

COMMUNICATE

Staff with Hero Administrator access are able to generate an Attendance letter which will be created as a post on a designated Attendance page. This post will be visible to caregivers once published.

Similar to the Medical Room, a dedicated Attendance Page has been created in all sites.  

Note:  The default for this page is 'OPEN to caregiver viewing'.  

• Click Edit to add Staff or Parent Info.   
• Note:  It is not recommended to change the visibility settings.
• Click the Autogroup slider to create an Autogroup for this page.  
• Sort the pages to place the Attendance page where it suits you best.

Attendance Letters are embedded templates based on the MoE sample letters for each threshold. i.e. each threshold will produce a different template. While the template is unable to be edited by the school, the attendance letter created is editable.

TO GENERATE AN ATTENDANCE LETTER

1. Find the student using one of the search tools available.

2. Click on the student profile image, or the Attendance icon (tick).

3. Click VIEW ATTENDANCE MANAGEMENT PLAN (or scroll down if already viewing this)

4.  Click ATTENDANCE LETTER

5.  An editable copy of the attendance letter for the student's current threshold will be displayed.  

The letter will contain several placeholders. These will be populated when you entered the required Nominated Person and Meeting Date.   

• Nominated Person - the staff member who will appear as the contact person in the letter.   
• Meeting Date - this will vary according to the letter produced.  View the label and letter to understand the requirement.

As the letter is a post that will appear on a student page, it is not specific to a caregiver.  Any caregiver with access to view the student learning will be able to see the letter.

6.  Edit the letter.  

Once all required fields have been populated and you are happy with the result, click NEXT. 

7.  A Preview of the completed letter will be displayed. Click BACK to return to make further changes or CREATE LETTER add a post to the student's page.

 8.  The post has been created on the student's Attendance page. This is created as a Draft so will not be visible to the caregiver until Published.

 

REPORTING

Hero runs several tasks between close of one day and open of the next to ensure the attendance data is accurate for the school and the MoE. These include:

• Updating of the calculated day code
• Updating of the threshold for all students
• Sends a notification to the designated staff member of threshold changes.
• Uploads the required AMP data to the MoE

TROUBLESHOOTING

If AMP data does not look correct:

1. Check that attendance has been entered for the relevant dates
2. Confirm absence codes are correct
3. Refresh the view after attendance updates
4. Confirm you have the correct permissions
5. Check your school calendar as school dates are required for all calculations