Statutory and School Expectations

Understanding the Legal Requirements for School Attendance

As parents, you play a vital role in your child’s education. It’s important to understand the legal requirements for school attendance in England:

1. Education is compulsory:
   By law, all children aged 5 to 16 must receive a full-time education. This can be at a school or through approved home education.
2. Parents’ responsibilities:
   If your child is registered at a school, it is your legal duty to make sure they attend regularly and on time. Absences must be explained, and schools will decide if the reason is acceptable (authorised) or not (unauthorised).
3. Unauthorised absences:
   Missing school without a valid reason, such as holidays taken during term time without approval, is considered unauthorised. Repeated unauthorised absences may lead to legal action, including fines or court proceedings.
4. School's responsibilities:
   Schools must monitor attendance and work with families to address any issues. If attendance becomes a concern, schools will contact parents to offer support and, if needed, may involve external services.

Our school attendance target is 96% or above, as regular attendance is key to your child's learning and success.

Authorised and Unauthorised Absence

An authorised absence is when a child is absent from school for a valid reason, and the school agrees that the absence is acceptable. For any absence to be authorised, parents must inform the school and/ or provide any necessary documentation or evidence.

Examples of authorised absence:

• An absence for sickness for which the school has granted leave.
• Medical or dental appointments which unavoidably fall during school time, for which the school has granted leave.
• Religious observance: where the day is exclusively set apart for religious observance by the religious body to which the pupil’s/student’s parent/carer belong. If necessary, the school will seek advice from the parents’ religious body to confirm whether the day is set apart. Parents will be expected to request leave of absence for religious observance in writing using the school’s leave of absence form. School will authorise one days leave for each religious observance (up to a maximum of two days leave in an academic year) providing a leave of absence request form is completed, otherwise these will be marked as unauthorised. 
• Traveller pupils travelling for occupational purposes: this covers Roma, English and Welsh gypsies, Irish and Scottish travelers, showmen (fairground people) and circus people, barges (occupational boat dwellers) and new travelers. Absence may be authorised only when a traveler family is known to be travelling for occupational purposes and has agreed this with the school, but it is not known whether the pupil is attending educational provision
• Significant family bereavement, i.e. Mother (step), Father (step), principal carer or sibling.
• Significant family illness, i.e. Mother (step), Father (step), principal carer or sibling.
• Involvement in court proceedings, either in the family courts or in criminal proceedings.
• An absence due to a family emergency

Any requests for leave during term time will be considered on an individual basis and the pupil’s previous attendance record will be considered. Where the absence is granted, the headteacher will determine the length of time the pupil can be away from school.

An unauthorised absence is when a child is absent from school without a valid reason, or when the school has not agreed that the absence is acceptable. These absences may result in penalty notices from the local authority. 

Examples of unauthorised absence:

• Parents keeping children off school unnecessarily or without reason.
• Absences which have never been properly explained.
• Arrival at school after the register has closed.
• Shopping, looking after other children or birthdays.
• Day trips and holidays in term-time which have not been agreed.
• Leaving school for no reason during the day.
• A Leave of Absence that was not approved.
• Where a pupil’s authorised absence record is already above 10% for any reason.

The Importance of Punctuality

Being on time helps your child start the day calmly and confidently, ready to learn alongside their friends. It also means they won’t miss out on important activities that set them up for success and a happy day at school.

A pupil/student who arrives late:

• Before the register has closed (after 8.50 and before 9.20) will be marked as late, using the appropriate code.
• After the register has closed (at 9.20) will be marked as absent, using the appropriate code.

Our school gates opens at 8:35am. Children need to be in school for 8:50am. If children arrive after 8:50am they will receive a late mark. We record how many minutes late and these are collated to gain an overall figure of a child’s punctuality. 

Please note: Part-time timetables are used for children who require them and this may mean planned, different arrival times.

The school office will contact parents of any pupils who are absent without a reason having been given.

In the first instance, Mrs Barradell (Learning Mentor) will contact parent/carers to inform them we are monitoring their child/s punctuality and send a letter home informing them of this. If there is no improvement, we will arrange an appointment to discuss persistent lateness in school. Mrs Barradell will work closely with families to understand the reasons behind the persistent lateness and offer individual, group or whole school support. All support is personalised and appropriate for the specific family school are working with. This support will be ongoing, but lateness/punctuality will be closely monitored for half a term before moving to the next step.