Built by attendance professionals, for attendance professionals.
The National Alliance for School Attendance (NAfSA) is a purpose-driven membership platform dedicated to supporting schools and local authorities, elevating statutory practice, and championing the professionals who keep children in education.
Leadership
Sector-led from the start.
John Leese
Founding Director, National Alliance for School Attendance
John Leese founded the National Alliance for School Attendance (NAfSA) to bring sector-built attendance tools, statutory guidance, and peer support together in one membership platform — reinvesting surplus into better provision for schools and local authorities rather than external shareholders.
He has spent more than twenty years leading attendance and safeguarding improvement at local authority, trust, and school level — from frontline education welfare work through to strategic service redesign, multi-agency partnerships, and traded attendance support aligned with Department for Education guidance, including Working Together to Improve School Attendance (England).
John served as President of the Association for Education Welfare Management (AEWM) from 2024 to 2025, the national body representing attendance professionals, and is Director of National Alliance for School Attendance Ltd, the registered company behind NAfSA. NAfSA remains sector-led: statutory content and expert answers are shaped by verified specialists and the wider member community, not by one individual. For how verified experts and founding members shape NAfSA, see our homepage section on sector-led governance.
Our social enterprise ethos
Mission-driven. Integrity-first.
We believe essential attendance tools should be built with integrity. NAfSA operates as a mission-driven tech platform with a clear promise to the education sector.
The Reinvestment Promise
We are not a generic software corporation; we are rooted in the education sector. After covering our secure hosting architecture, server costs, and fair staff remuneration, 100% of NAfSA's surplus revenue is strictly reinvested into expanding the platform's capabilities and building better tools for schools.
Sector-Led Development
NAfSA is designed directly from the realities of frontline attendance work. Instead of answering to external shareholders, our development roadmap is driven by statutory updates and the direct, practical needs of schools and local authorities.
How NAfSA is funded
Free for the community, funded openly.
Community features — the forum, resource library, CPD log, member directory, and browsing expert answers — are free, because a strong peer network benefits the whole sector. We earn our income from three clear sources, and any surplus left after hosting, staff, and operations is reinvested in the platform.
Professional membership
Schools, trusts, and local authorities pay for Professional membership — the statutory hubs (Support First, Compliance, Benchmarking & reports), ask an expert, member event pricing, and group licences for whole teams.
Training and events
Ticket income from CPD courses, webinars, and conferences run for everyone who works with attendance. Members receive discounted, priority booking.
Reviewed partner listings
Suppliers and trainers create a free Community account to submit directory listings and event promotions. Eligible non-profits pay no promotion fee; for-profit organisations use paid listing tiers — paid Professional members save 25%. Every listing is reviewed; we do not endorse every product.
We do not sell member data to advertisers. Schools and LAs can explore practitioner membership; suppliers and partners can advertise & list in the Professional Partner Directory.
Procurement & governance
Information for procurement teams
To maintain high standards of data security, reliable hosting, and agile software development, NAfSA is built and maintained by specialist education technology developers.
The NAfSA platform is operated by National Alliance for School Attendance Ltd, registered in England and Wales (company number 10252699). This structure allows us to provide enterprise-grade software reliability to MATs and local authorities while protecting our community-first ethos.
For procurement and data protection review, see our procurement & governance pack, Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.
Join the community
Ready to elevate your attendance strategy?
Join schools and local authorities using NAfSA for attendance guidance, professional tools, and peer support.