Dear Parents/carers

The law entitles every child of compulsory school age to an efficient, full-time education suitable to their age, aptitude, and any special educational need they may have. It is the legal responsibility of every parent to make sure their child receives that education either by attendance at a school or by education otherwise than at a school.

Where parents decide to have their child registered at school, they have an additional legal duty to ensure their child attends that school regularly. This means their child must attend every day that the school is open, except in a small number of allowable circumstances such as being too ill to attend or being given permission for an absence in advance from the school.

This is essential for students to get the most out of their school experience, including their attainment, wellbeing, and wider life chances. The students with the highest attainment at the end of key stage 4 have higher rates of attendance over the key stage compared to those with the lowest attainment. The overall absence rate of students not achieving grade 9 to 4 is over twice as high as those achieving grade 9 to 5.

With this in mind, last week the Department for Education (DfE) published some significantly new guidance focused on attendance that will impact on both schools and parents. However, only a small amount of this ended up in the press. Inevitably the press focused almost entirely on the fact that fines for taking children out of school during term time for a holiday are to rise from £60 to £80.

While this new legislation does not become law until September, I wanted to make sure all John Hanson parents and carers were fully aware of the changes as soon as possible.

From September:

• Schools must inform their local authority when a pupil has, or will, miss 15 days due to illness. It is currently unclear what will happen with this information.
• Schools must provide the local authority with the names and addresses of all pupils of compulsory school age who fail to attend school regularly or have been absent for a continuous period of ten school days where their absence has been recorded as unauthorised.
• A National Framework for Penalty Notices will be introduced from September 2024. It will set a single national threshold for considering a penalty notice of 10 sessions (typically, 5 days) within 10 weeks, replacing area by area thresholds. There will be an increase in the fine amount to £160 if paid within 28 days, reduced to £80 when paid within 21 days. Finally, the DfE Will be supporting schools and local authorities to tackle repeated offences by introducing a flat rate of £160 for a second penalty notice within a three year period and not allowing more than 2 penalty notices during a child’s compulsory education after which an alternative route will be considered instead as the penalty is clearly not working. This may include prosecution and or making the case for a community or parenting order.

However, this does not change the fact that we will continue doing everything reasonably possible to work with you and your child when a pattern of absence is at risk of becoming, or becomes, problematic. We will want to continue working to find out what the barriers to attendance are and work in partnership with you to find solutions so your child is able to gain all the benefits, both academic and social, that attending school regularly brings. I will continue to write on a regular basis as more information emerges about the detail behind the government’s plans.

Enjoy the weekend with your children.

Regards
Russell Stevens
Headteacher