Attendance
For most pupils, the best place to be is in school, surrounded by the support of their friends and teachers.
This is important not just for your child's learning, but also for their overall wellbeing, wider development and their mental health.
What if my child is too ill to go to school?
It's usually safe for parents and carers to send their children to school with mild illnesses, like a minor cough, runny nose of sore throat.
However, children should stay at home if they have a high temperature of 38C or above.
The NHS has published guidance to help parents and carers decide whether their child is well enough to attend school, including information on a range of common childhood illnesses and conditions.
When can my child be absent from school?
When you register your child at school, you have a legal duty to ensure your child attends that school regularly.
This means that your child must attend every day that the school is open, unless:
- Your child is too ill to attend that day.
- You have asked in advance and been given permission by the school for your child to be absent on that day due to exceptional circumstances.
- Your child cannot attend school on that day because it is a day you are taking part in religious observance.
- Your local authority is responsible for arranging your child’s transport to school and it is not available on that day or has not been provided yet; or
You are a gypsy/traveller family with no fixed abode, and you are required to travel for work that day meaning your child cannot attend their usual school. In most circumstances, however, your child is required to attend another school temporarily during such absences.
These are the only circumstances where schools can permit your child to be absent.
Parents who take their child out of school without permission may face paying a fine.
Holiday requests during term time
Approval for term-time absence
The headteacher will only grant a leave of absence to a pupil during term time if the request meets the specific circumstances set out in the 2024 school attendance regulations. These circumstances are:
- Taking part in a regulated performance, or regulated employment abroad
- Attending an interview
- Study leave
- A temporary, time-limited part-time timetable
- Exceptional circumstances
A leave of absence is granted at the headteacher’s discretion, including the length of time the pupil is authorised to be absent for.
Leave of absence will not be granted for a pupil to take part in protest activity during school hours.
As a leave of absence will only be granted in exceptional circumstances, it is unlikely a leave of absence will be granted for the purposes of a family holiday.
Penalty Notices to Address Poor Attendance at School
Before issuing a penalty notice, the school will consider the individual case, including:
- Whether the national threshold for considering a penalty notice has been met (10 sessions of unauthorised absence in a rolling period of 10 school weeks)
- Whether a penalty notice is the best available tool to improve attendance for that pupil
- Whether further support, a notice to improve or another legal intervention would be a more appropriate solution
- Whether any obligations that the school has under the Equality Act 2010 make issuing a penalty notice inappropriate.
AMOUNT PAYABLE FOR A PENALTY NOTICE
Each parent who is liable for the pupil’s offence(s) can be issued with a penalty notice.
The payment must be made directly to the local authority, regardless of who issues the notice. If the payment has not been made after 28 days, the local authority can decide whether to prosecute or withdraw the notice.
If issued with a first penalty notice, the parent must pay £80 within 21 days, or £160 within 28 days.
If a second penalty notice is issued to the same parent in respect of the same pupil, the parent must pay £160 if paid within 28 days.
A third penalty notice cannot be issued to the same parent in respect of the same child within 3 years of the date of the issue of the first penalty notice. In a case where the national threshold is met for a third time within those 3 years, alternative action will be taken instead.
A penalty notice may also be issued where parents allow their child to be present in a public place during school hours without reasonable justification, during the first 5 days of a suspension or exclusion (where the school has notified the parents that the pupil must not be present in a public place on that day). These penalty notices are not included in the National Framework, not subject to the same considerations about support being provided, and do not count towards the limit as part of the escalation process.
In these cases, the parent must pay £60 within 21 days, or £120.