Attendance 

What are my responsibilities for my child’s attendance?

As a parent, carer or guardian, you are legally responsible for making sure your child gets a suitable full time education, usually from the age of 5 to 16. This means making sure your child is in school every day except when:

• your child is too ill to go to school

• you have permission for a leave of absence from your child’s school for them not to attend. You should only ask for this in exceptional circumstances

• your religious body has a day especially for religious observance

 

If my child needs to be absent from school, what do I need to do?

You should contact their school as early as possible on the first day of absence to explain why. If you do not, your child’s school will contact you on the first morning of their absence to find out why your child is not in school.

 

All parents can request a ‘leave of absence’ for their child which gives them permission to be absent from school. Your child’s school has the final say over whether to approve the request and for how long your child can be absent.

 

Accessing support to help my child attend school because of an issue in school

The first step is to talk to your child’s school about why your child is missing school, and what help the school can give. You should still do everything you can to help your child attend as much as possible whilst waiting for help and support to be put into place. Information on who in school you can contact for help, including the school’s senior leader responsible for attendance, can be found in the school’s attendance policy on its website or available in hard copy from the school.

 

If your child is struggling to attend because of something that is happening at school, their school is expected to work with you (and your child if they are old enough) to overcome the issues. You should agree a set of joint actions with the school that you have all developed together to support your child.

 

This will often include a commitment to support you and your child by working together or help you to access support services in exchange for an agreement from you (and your child if they are old enough to understand) to take part in the support offered.

 

The school will also arrange times for you to come together to review these actions and your child’s progress. Depending on the reasons for your child’s absence, this may take the form of an action plan, an early help plan, or a parenting contract.

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Accessing support to help my child attend school because of an issue at home

Again, talking to the school should be your first step. It is expected to help you access the support you need – such as from a School Nurse, Early Help or local housing or transport team. The Education Welfare Team may work with the school and signpost to support if the issues you or your child are facing are beyond the remit of the school.

 

If there are lots of reasons for your child’s absence, local services are expected to work together to support you and your child. They are expected to provide you with a single action plan and lead worker to help and support you. In most cases this will be a member of school staff but it might be a member of the Education Welfare Team or an NHS practitioner.

 

In exchange, you are expected to agree and take part in accessing the support once it has been put in place. It is advisable to regularly meet with your child’s school to review what is and isn’t working, involving your child if possible. While waiting for help, you should still do everything you can to help your child attend as much as possible

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Where can I get help if my child is too anxious to go to school?

Attending school usually helps to protect your child’s mental health, for a range of reasons including giving them a chance to be with friends and to benefit from learning. However, some children can be anxious or worried about going to school, particularly around the start of the new year or joining a new school or class. This is a normal emotion, and not necessarily indicative of an underlying mental health condition.

 

If their anxiety continues and becomes an attendance issue, you should speak to your child's school together with your child about why they are anxious and what can be done. You can find some useful advice at School Anxiety and Refusal | Parent Guide to Support | YoungMinds, to help work through likely reasons together with your child, what to do and how to make sure that you get the right support if there are more serious issues.

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Education Welfare Team

The Education Welfare Team works with schools, education providers and other practitioners alongside parents, carers and children and young people to support a multi-agency approach to attendance improvement. They may speak with you, your child, staff at your child’s school and health and social care practitioners to put in place plans to support attendance. 

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Legal action and attendance

If your child is absent from school without permission or a valid reason, you are likely to be breaking the law. Where this happens, your child’s school or teams providing support at the council will speak to you to understand the reasons. If your child hasn’t attended because they are struggling to, your child’s school, any health and social care practitioners supporting your child and the Education Welfare Team will work together to put the right support in place to help you.

 

If you do not take part in that support, or it doesn’t work because more structured formal support is needed, then one of the following my happen:

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• You are invited to agree to a parenting contract. This is not a punishment or a criticism of your parenting. It is a more formal action plan that sets out what you will do to improve your child’s attendance and what your child’s school and/or other practitioners will do to support this.

• If your family is already working with a social worker, expectations about attendance could be included in children in need and child protection plans.  

• the local authority might apply to the family court for an education supervision order to ensure you and your child receive advice, assistance and direction to make sure they receive a suitable full-time education.

• The school might ask the local authority to issue a fixed penalty notice to you, in line with the local code of conduct, because there has been unauthorised absence from school and other support has not worked.

• If all other support has been exhausted and your child's attendance is still below expectations, it is possible that attendance prosecution will be used.

   

Further information

You can read more about attendance at

• Absence from school | Contact

• Attendance-Strategy-Sept-23.pdf (northumberland.gov.uk)

• A guide to non-school attendance (northumberland.gov.uk)