Deleting a pupil from the school admission register: The 20-day rule explained

Ground I is set out in Regulation 9(1)(i) of the School Attendance (Pupil Registration) (England) Regulations 2024 (the Attendance Regulations) and referred to in the DfE’s statutory guidance Working together to improve school attendance (the Attendance Guidance).

Below, we summarise the questions schools must ask before making a decision.

1. Has the pupil been continuously absent for a period of at least 20 school days?

2. Was the pupil’s attendance marked as Code G, N or O for the whole of that 20+ day period?  

These are found in Table 3 in Regulation 10 of the Attendance Regulations:

• Code G: The pupil was absent without leave for a holiday.
• Code N: The circumstances of the pupil’s absence have not yet been established. This must be amended within five school days to another code.
• Code O: None of the other attendance codes apply.

If any other code was used during the 20-day period, the pupil’s name cannot be deleted under Ground I.

3. Does the school have reasonable grounds to believe that the pupil is unable to attend because of sickness or an unavoidable cause?

'Sickness' may include absence for mental health reasons, or reasons linked to a child’s behavioural disorder or condition (regardless of whether there has been a formal diagnosis). It could also be due to severe anxiety, significant social, emotional, and mental health (SEMH) needs or 'emotion-based school avoidance'. It does not have to be physical sickness.

'Unavoidable cause' could arise where a parent is in dispute with the local authority about the child’s appropriate setting and/or whether the child’s needs can be met in the school, or where there is a dispute or issue relating to school transport. It could also be that the parents are unable to get their child to school for a reason linked to their own health or domestic circumstances, rather than the child’s health.

4. Have the school and home local authority jointly made reasonable efforts to establish the pupil’s location and circumstances, but:

• have not succeeded, or
• have succeeded, but they agree there are no reasonable grounds to believe the pupil will attend school again, taking into account any reasonable steps they could take (jointly or separately) to secure the pupil’s attendance?

Guidance on making 'reasonable efforts', or enquiries, is set out in the DfE’s statutory guidance on children missing education (the CME Guidance), which the Attendance Guidance says schools and local authorities must follow. It says that, where a school’s initial enquiries lead them to believe the child will no longer be attending school and the parent has not informed the school that the pupil will attend another school or be educated at home, the school must refer the child to the local authority's CME team as soon as possible.

The local authority and the school must then conduct 'reasonable enquiries' (as they are called in the CME Guidance) in a thorough and collaborative manner, appropriate to the circumstances of the particular case. In addition to making contact with those meeting the definition of a "parent’ in education law, this may include checking with other agencies (e.g. the police, social care) as well as the pupil’s siblings" schools and previous/other local authorities, speaking to landlords, neighbours and relatives, checking local and national databases, and following local information sharing protocols.

'Reasonable steps' to secure attendance is likely to include the various powers the local authority has to secure attendance following unauthorised absence (e.g. fixed penalty notice, parenting order, education supervision order, school attendance order, prosecution), given it is a criminal offence for a parent to fail to ensure that their child attends the school they are registered at regularly, unless they have reasonable justification for this.

The emphasis is on joint enquiries by, and collaboration with, the local authority. The local authority's agreement is needed before a school can lawfully delete the pupil’s name from its admission register on the basis of Ground I.

Even where the school is sure there is no good reason for the absence and the pupil will not return, the non-attendance must be treated as unauthorised absence. The school and local authority should follow their usual processes (including taking appropriate enforcement action against the parents) before moving to next steps.

The section 19 duty

If there is a reason for the non-attendance, Ground I is unlikely to be met as it will need to be decided whether or not the attendance is authorised. If it is authorised, section 19 Education Act 1996 will apply. This requires the local authority to provide “suitable and (normally) full-time education for children of compulsory school age who, because of exclusion, illness or other reasons, would not receive suitable education without such provision” as described in the DfE’s guidance on arranging education for children who cannot attend school because of health needs. The local authority section 19 duty is not restricted solely to health grounds and permanent exclusion; it also covers other reasons.

When does section 19 apply?

Either there is a reason for the child’s non-attendance which would authorise their absence (almost always triggering the local authority’s section 19 duty), or there is no good reason for it, which would mean it is unauthorised (triggering the school’s and local authority’s attendance policies and procedures, including the need for the authority to consider what enforcement action they can and should take with the parents to secure attendance). It is only once the latter has been explored and exhausted that Ground I can potentially be relied on to remove the pupil from the school’s roll.

Steps to progress matters

Where schools are struggling to get their local authority to cooperate or collaborate with them, it can help to send a formal signed and dated letter on headed notepaper setting out the chronology (with dates) and signposting the guidance and specific duties outlined above. This can help move things forward and get the child back into education as soon as possible. If that is not successful, schools can refer these matters to the Secretary of State for Education (via the DfE) seeking a direction to resolve the situation.

Joanna Goddard is a Legal Director at Browne Jacobson.