I think you'd need to provide a screenshot of the status set up , and the settings you have in the attendance session around student recording as there are a few different settings that control the behaviour.
the "automatic marking" droplist and the checkbox "Automatically select highest status available" on the session editing page are important as so is the "available for students" and "points" values in the status set config.
the "automatic marking" droplist and the checkbox "Automatically select highest status available" on the session editing page are important as so is the "available for students" and "points" values in the status set config.