Andrea Squires and Theresa Kerr examine the Department for Education's revised guidance on school attendance and set out what’s new for pupils with SEND and part-time timetables.
The government has published updated statutory guidance on ‘Working together to improve school attendance’, effective from 19 August 2024. The guidance is required to be read alongside statutory guidance on children missing education, supporting pupils with medical conditions at school, education for children with health needs who cannot attend school, suspensions and exclusions, alternative provision, and Keeping Children Safe in Education.
The guidance has been updated to:
- Be clearer on the link between improving attendance and wider school culture, including the importance of working in partnership with families to find supportive routes to improve attendance.
- Reflect changes to the law on keeping school attendance and admission registers including a revised set of codes, granting leaves of absence and access to, and sharing of, attendance information introduced through the School Attendance (Pupil Registration) (England) Regulations 2024.
- Set out the new National Framework for issuing penalty notices and reflect changes to the law introduced through the Education (Penalty Notices) (England) (Amendment) Regulations 2024.
- Change ‘parenting contracts’ for attendance to ‘attendance contracts’ to better reflect the agreement between parents, schools and/or local authorities.
The expectations of schools have been updated to:
- Update the section on pupils who are prevented from attending school due to physical or mental ill health to be clear where schools’ role starts and ends, provide further clarification around medical evidence, additional support for pupils with special educational needs and disabilities and part-time timetables.
- Explain the new requirements for schools on data sharing introduced through the Education (Information about Individual Pupils) (England) (Amendment) Regulations 2024.
- Provide clarification of the expectations of schools’ senior attendance champions.
- Expect schools to inform a pupil’s youth offending team worker of any unexplained absences.
All schools are now expected to have a clear, written school attendance policy based on the expectations set out in the statutory guidance. As a minimum it should detail:
- The attendance and punctuality expectations of pupils and parents, including start and close of the day, register closing times and the processes for requesting leaves of absence and informing the school of the reason for an unexpected absence.
- The name and contact details of the school’s Senior Attendance Champion. We also suggest “that this “champion” is identified in the school’s safeguarding policy as it is now recognised and highlighted that attendance is a safeguarding issue.
- Information and contact details of the school staff who pupils and parents should contact about attendance on a day to day basis (such as a form tutor, attendance officer etc) and for more detailed support on attendance (such as a head of year, pastoral lead or family liaison officer etc).
- The school’s day to day processes for managing attendance, for example first day calling and processes to follow up on unexplained absence.
- How the school is promoting and incentivising good attendance.
- The school’s strategy for using data to target attendance improvement efforts to the pupils or pupil cohorts who need it most.
- The school’s strategy for reducing persistent and severe absence, including how access to wider support services will be provided to remove the barriers to attendance and when support will be formalised in conjunction with the local authority.
- Details of the National Framework for Penalty Notices and when Notices to Improve, penalty notices or other legal interventions will be sought if support is not appropriate (e.g. for a holiday in term time), not successful, or not engaged with.
Whilst every pupil has a right to a full-time education and high attendance expectations should be set for all pupils, the attendance policy should account for the specific needs of certain pupils and pupil cohorts. The policy should be applied fairly and consistently but in doing so schools should always consider the individual needs of pupils and their families who have specific barriers to attendance.
In the development and implementation of their policy, schools must consider their obligations under the Equality Act 2010 and considerations under the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.
Pupils with special educational needs and disabilities
Pupils who have long term physical or mental health conditions or who have special educational needs and disabilities (SEND), have the same right to an education as any other pupil and therefore the attendance ambition for these pupils should be the same as it is for any other pupil, recognising that additional support may need to be provided, and reasonable adjustments made.
In developing this support, the usual processes relevant to any attendance case apply:
- Understanding the individual needs of the pupil and family, there must be no one size fits all approach to these pupils.
- Working in partnership with the pupil and family to put in-school support in place and working with the local authority and other agencies where external support is needed (and available), including, where applicable, ensuring the provision outlined in the pupil’s education, health and care plan is accessed.
- Regularly reviewing and updating the support approach to make sure it continues to meet individual needs.
- Consider adjustments to practice and policies to help meet the needs of pupils who are struggling to attend school, as well as making formal reasonable adjustments in accordance with the school’s reasonable adjustments duty pursuant to section 20 of the Equality Act 2010 where a pupil has a disability. Any adjustments should be agreed by, and regularly reviewed with the pupil and their parents. To include establishing strategies for removing in-school barriers, for example, reasonable adjustments for uniform, transport, routines, access to support in school and lunchtime arrangements.
If the child has an education health and care plan, school staff should:
- Communicate with the local authority where a pupil’s attendance falls or they become aware of barriers to attendance that relate to the pupil’s needs.
- Where possible agree adjustments to its policies and practices that are consistent with the special educational provision set out in the education health and care plan in collaboration with parents.
- Where needed, work with the local authority to review and amend the education health and care plan to incorporate the additional or different attendance support identified.
Schools should ensure data is regularly monitored for pupils with long term illnesses and or special educational needs or disabilities including at Trust Board and Governing Body meetings and in Targeting Support Meetings with the local authority so that additional support from other partners is accessed, without delay, where necessary.
Remember that medical evidence for recording absences should only be needed and requested in a minority of cases. Where a pupil’s health need means they need reasonable adjustments or support because it is complex or long term, schools can and are advised to seek medical evidence to better understand the needs of the pupil and identify the most suitable provision, again working in partnership with families and external agencies.
Part-time timetables
All pupils of compulsory school age are entitled to a full-time education suitable to their age, aptitude and any special educational needs they may have. In some circumstances their education may be provided partially at school and partially at another educational setting or through education otherwise than at a school in line with section 19 of the Education Act 1996 or section 42 or 61 of the Children and Families Act 2014.
In very exceptional circumstances, where it is in a pupil’s best interests, there may be a need for a school to provide a pupil of compulsory school age with less than full-time education through a temporary part-time timetable to meet their individual needs.
A part-time timetable should not be used to manage a pupil’s behaviour.
A part-time timetable should:
- Have the agreement of both the school and the parent the pupil normally lives with; ideally the consent of everyone with parental responsibility for the pupil will agree with this approach when it is recognised to be in the pupil’s best interests.
- Have a clear ambition and be part of the pupil’s wider support, health care or reintegration plan.
- Have regular review dates which include the pupil and their parents to ensure it is only in place for the shortest time necessary.
- Have a proposed end date that takes into account the circumstances of the pupil, after which the pupil is expected to attend full-time, either at school or alternative provision. It can, however, be extended as part of the regular review process. In some limited cases, a pupil with a long-term health condition may require a part-time timetable for a prolonged period.
In addition, where the pupil has a social worker, the expectation is that the school will keep them informed. Similarly, if the pupil is subject to an EHCP the school should discuss the part-time timetable with the local authority so that any support package can be reviewed as quickly as possible.
Support first is the key message from this updated guidance; schools and partners should work in partnership with pupils and parents collaboratively to remove any barriers to attendance by building strong and trusting relationships and working together to put the right support in place, to assist all children to access their legal entitlement to an efficient, full-time education suitable to their age, aptitude, and any special educational need they may have. In order to achieve this, schools need to be somewhere pupils want to be; the foundation of securing good attendance is that school is a calm, orderly, safe, and supportive environment where all pupils are keen and ready to learn.
This is essential for pupils to get the most out of their school experience, including their attainment, wellbeing, and wider life chances.
Andrea Squires and Theresa Kerr are Partners at Winckworth Sherwood.
