School attendance: your responsibilities
Attendance
If you are a parent of, or are responsible for, a child who is registered at school (between ages 5-16) you will need to ensure they attend school regularly.
The law and attendance
- Parents are committing an offence if they fail to ensure their child's
regular attendance at school.
- Prosecution could result in a fine of up to £2,500, a jail sentence of
up to three months or a community sentence.
- Alternatively,
Education Welfare Officers, Police Officers and head teachers have
the authority to issue penalty notices to parents of between £50 and
£100. Failure to pay a properly issued penalty notice will result in
prosecution as set out above.
- Parenting contract - where parents need support to prevent their child from truanting, schools and local authorities (LAs) may offer to enter into a parenting contract. This is a voluntary two sided agreement between the parent and school or LA under which the parent agrees to comply with certain requirements and the school or LA agrees to provide them with the support that they need.
The role of the LA in attendance
Local authorities (LAs) are responsible,
by law, for making sure parents fulfil their responsibility of ensuring that
their child receives an education either by regular attendance at school, or
otherwise. Most LAs employ
education welfare officers, (also called education social workers) to
monitor school attendance and to help parents meet their
responsibilities.
Education welfare officers work closely with schools and some are actually
based in schools. If your child is not attending school regularly, an education
welfare officer may visit you. For your child's sake you should co-operate
with the education welfare officer to make sure your child overcomes his or her
attendance problems and gets a proper education.
If you do not do everything you can to cooperate with the education welfare
officer and school, the LA may consider imposing an education supervision order
through the court. This means that the court appoints a supervisor to help and
give advice to you and your child.
The LA can also prosecute you in a magistrates court. This could result in you
and your partner being fined up to a maximum fine of £2,500 and/or a term
of imprisonment of up to three months for each child who is not going to
school.
More information on attendance
If you need more information or help, please contact your local school or
your local authority. You can get further copies of this information in leaflet
form from:
DCSF Publications Centre
P O Box 5050
Sudbury
CO10 6ZQ
Telephone : 0845 60 222 60
Fax : 0845 60 333 60
Email :
dfes@prolog.uk.com
Copies of this leaflet are also available in Arabic, Bengali, Chinese, Greek,
Gujerati, Hindi, Punjabi, Somali, Turkish, Urdu and Vietnamese
Why must my child go to school regularly?
Having a good education will help to give your child the best possible start in life. Here are a few reasons why it is important to attend school regularly:
- They will not be able to keep up with school work.
- Employers will want to be sure that the people they are hiring are reliable. So children who have not attended their school regularly have less chance of getting a job.
- Young people who are off school are at risk of becoming victims of crime or abuse.
- Children may also be drawn into antisocial or criminal behaviour.
What can I do to help?
The most important thing you can do is to make sure your child goes to school regularly, arrives on time and keeps to the school's rules of attending all lessons. Start these good habits at an early age while your child is in primary school and you will make things easier for yourself in the long run. Here are a few more tips:
- If your child starts missing school, help the school to put things right. Make sure your child understands that you do not approve of them missing school.
- If your child is ill, contact the school on the first day of your child's illness. Staff will be concerned if they do not hear anything.
- If your child is ever off school, you must tell the school why. Do this by following the arrangements made by the school.
- If you want permission for your child to miss school for a special occasion such as a wedding, you should ask for permission well in advance and give full details.
- Do not expect the school to agree to shopping trips during school hours.
- Take an interest in your child's schoolwork.
- Support the school in its efforts to control bad behaviour.
Family holidays during term
Wherever possible, you should take your holidays during school holidays.
Avoid taking your child on holiday at critical times during their education,
e.g. at the beginning of the academic year - especially if they change
schools, or when your child should be taking exams or tests.
You should not expect your child's school to agree to a family holiday
during term time. The school will carefully consider your request and they may
take your child's attendance record into account. Schools will not agree to
your child missing more than a total of 10 school days for family holidays
in any one school year, unless there is a very good reason.
If your child is off school for more than 10 days, the school may set work
for them to do while you are away.
