The service is aimed at three-and four-year-olds who receive nursery education funding.
Rachel Sykes, early years attendance development officer at Sunderland City Council, is leading the project.
She told Nursery World that 80 per cent of nursery education providers, including private and voluntary nurseries, were involved.
Settings that take part agree to share their attendance data via electronic access or paper records submitted every half term.
In return, they receive a resource pack, including a mascot called Spike who encourages children to talk about going to nursery.
Moya Thirlwell, head of Plains Farm Primary School, said, 'The idea of Spike and the activities around him make the programme exciting and enable children to identify with him and his routines, like getting up and getting washed.'
Ms Sykes said the scheme had evolved in response to primary head teachers who had noticed that some reception class children were already missing school regularly.
'The aim is to try to stop children falling into a pattern of non-attendance before primary school. This is non-compulsory education, so it has to be tackled sensitively. Nurseries are encouraged to try to talk to the family first. If this doesn't work, children are referred to me and I will contact them and offer support. It could be that the family are experiencing short-term difficulties. For example, I had one family where the mother had to have an operation on her ankle and couldn't drive. We were able to help arrange transport with the social care bus.'
Ms Sykes said she knew of a similar early years support service operating in Birmingham, but believed that Sunderland was the only other local authority running such a scheme.
