School Attendance and Absence

Introduction
Parental Responsibilities
Holidays in term-time
Part-time Timetables
Role of the Council of the Isles of Scilly and other partners
Support to promote Attendance at School on the Isles of Scilly
Understanding *Penalty Notice Fines for Absence
Code of Conduct for Issuing Penalty Notices
Contact details
Help and Support
Further Information

Introduction

On the Isles of Scilly, we’re ambitious about children achieving their goals and aspirations. We believe that regular attendance in education is essential for children to get the most out of their experiences including improving their achievement, well-being and life-chances. For children who have additional vulnerabilities regular attendance is also an important protective factor and the best opportunity for their needs to be identified and support provided.

The law entitles every child of compulsory school age (5-16 years) to an efficient, full-time education suitable to their age, aptitude, and any special educational need they may have.

A school environment that is safe and inclusive, where children’s needs are understood is the basis for supporting good attendance. The most effective schools consistently promote the benefits of good attendance at school and make schools a place children want to be.

However, securing good attendance cannot be seen in isolation therefore the Department of Education published statutory guidance in August 2024 called ‘Working Together to Improve School Attendance.’ For some children, attending school every day can be harder than for others. This is why the school, the Council of the Isles of Scilly and other partners, are committed to working together with families to solve problems and support your child’s school attendance.

Parental Responsibilities

Parents are responsible for ensuring that their child receives an education. It is the legal responsibility of every parent to make sure their child receives an education either by attendance at a school or by education otherwise than at a school. One way you can do this is by registering them at school and ensuring they attend school regularly. If your child is on a school roll, you are also responsible for ensuring your child attends that school regularly. This means your 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.

The government states that a child who attends school 90 per cent or below is a persistent absentee. If your child has missed more than 50 per cent of school sessions, they are referred to as severely absent. Appropriate levels of attendance depend on a child’s individual circumstances, however good attendance is 97 percent or above.

You must get permission from the headteacher if your child needs time off school. Your child is only allowed to miss school if:

Your child is too ill to attend that day
You have asked in advance and been given permission by the school for your child to be absent on that day due to exceptional circumstances- consideration will be given to the reason for the leave, whether or not the leave could be taken during the statutory school holidays, time and duration of the leave, family circumstances, and the learning that will be missed.
Your child cannot attend school on that day because it is a day you are taking part in religious observance.
Your child is at a medical (dental/doctor/health) appointment (including travel to and from if required)
There are poor weather conditions that impact transport arrangements to or from the islands.
The child/family experiences a bereavement

You should let the school know as early as possible if your child needs to miss school.

Holidays in term-time

Missing school can negatively impact your child’s progress. You must request permission from the headteacher if you want to take your child out of school during term time. Unauthorised holiday’s during term time will be coded as ‘G’ and as parents/carers may be liable to receive a Penalty Notice* for taking your child out of school for a holiday during term time without the school’s permission.

Part-time Timetables

In some circumstances a child’s 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. Schools are required to inform the local authority (LA) of any pupil who is on a part-time timetable.

In very exceptional circumstances, where it is in a child’s best interests, there may be a need for a school to provide a temporary part-time timetable to meet their individual needs. For example, where a medical condition prevents a child from attending school or another setting full-time, and a part-time timetable is used to help the child access as much education as possible. A part-time timetable should not be used to manage behaviour.

A part-time timetable should:

Have the agreement of both the school and the parent the child normally lives with.
Have a clear ambition and be part of the child’s wider support, health care or reintegration plan.
Have regular review dates which include the child and their parents to ensure it is only in place for the shortest time necessary.
Have a proposed end date that considers the circumstances of the child, after which the child 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 child with a long-term health condition may require a parttime timetable for a prolonged period.

In agreeing a part-time timetable for your child, the school has agreed to absence from school for part of the week or day and therefore must record the absence using the correct code.

If your child has a social worker, the school is expected to keep the social worker informed- contact can be made with all social workers through: childrenssocialcare@scilly.gov.uk. Likewise, if your child has an Education Health and Care Plan (EHCP) then the SEND Belonging and Inclusion team should be informed so that the arrangements can be reviewed regularly. The SEND, Belonging and Inclusion Team can be contacted at familyscilly@scilly.gov.uk .

Role of the Council of the Isles of Scilly and other partners

Attendance at school is everyone’s business. The Council of the Isles of Scilly (CIOS) has a crucial role, alongside other statutory partners to ensure all children can access the full-time education to which they are entitled. How these responsibilities are fulfilled is determined locally so that the needs of children, parents, and schools on the Isles of Scilly can be met.

Support to promote Attendance at School on the Isles of Scilly

The principles underpinning the Working Together to Improve School Attendance guidance are about a ‘support first’ approach with families to help overcome barriers to attendance. This is where the school, SEND, Belonging and Inclusion Team work together with wider partners, including any local support organisations as appropriate to support children’s attendance.

The SEND, Belonging and Inclusion Team has a strategic role tracking local attendance data with the aim to improve school attendance, reduce absence and to give parents and children the same message regarding the importance of regular attendance at school. The priority for the service is to support where there are concerns about cohorts of children who are persistent or severely absent. This would include informing the child’s social worker or EHCP caseworker if there are unexplained absences from school. We may also liaise with the Head of the Virtual school where children have a social worker and there are concerns about attendance.

The four core functions provided to the school by the SEND, Belonging and Inclusion Team are as follows:

Communication and advice:

Lead on strategic communications to promote good attendance, share key messages and good practice.

Targeted Support Meetings:

These are regular conversations with the school, using school attendance data to identify individual children or cohorts at risk of poor attendance to agree targeted actions and access to services for those children. Targeted Support Meetings are held termly between the school attendance lead and a member of the Isles of Scilly SEND, Belonging and Inclusion Team.

Multi-disciplinary support for families:

Provide access to Strengthening Families Practitioners, or signpost to other services who can provide practical whole-family support where needed to tackle the causes of absenteeism and unblock the barriers to attendance.

Legal intervention:

As absence from school can, in some cases be a symptom of wider issues a family is facing. The school, and the SEND, Belonging and Inclusion Team will always work together with other local partners to understand the barriers to attendance and provide support. However, if that is not successful, or is not engaged with, the law protects children’s right to an education and provides a range of legal interventions to formalise attendance improvement efforts where all other avenues have been exhausted, enabling the enforcement of attendance through prosecuting parents. Attendance legal intervention can only be used for children of compulsory school age, and decisions would be made on an individual case by case basis.

Understanding *Penalty Notice Fines for Absence

The New National Framework for Penalty Notices for absence came into force on 19th August 2024. This means that there is a consistent national threshold for when a Penalty Notice for absence can be issued by all schools in England. This is as follows:

10 sessions (usually equivalent to 5 school days) of unauthorised absence within a rolling 10 school week period.
These sessions do not have to be consecutive and can be made up of a combination of any type of unauthorised absence.
For example, a 5-day unauthorised leave of absence would meet the national threshold.
The 10-school week period can span different terms or school years.

Reasons for issuing penalty notices include:

truancy
unauthorised absences
excluded pupils found in a public place during the first 5 days of exclusion
unauthorised holidays in term time (without permission from the headteacher)

In most cases the school and the Council of the Isles of Scilly Children’s Services will try to provide help and support families to improve their child’s attendance. However, if supportive measures aren’t effective, parents could be issued with a penalty notice if your child misses school without permission.

We recognise that there are some children who have specific needs, or who are facing particular emotional or mental health challenges or have complex medical needs that require specific support to be put in place for their individual needs.

Code of Conduct for Issuing Penalty Notices

Penalty notices are issued to parents as an alternative to prosecution where they have failed to ensure that their child of compulsory school age regularly attends the school where they are on roll. Only children of compulsory school age fall within the scope of the Penalty Notice Code of Conduct.

This code has been issued pursuant to The Education (Penalty Notices) (England) Regulations 2007/1867 (as amended).

Penalty notices are an alternative to prosecution. They give parents the opportunity to discharge their liability in respect of the following two offences by paying a penalty:

Education Act 1996, section 444(1): failure by a parent to secure regular attendance at school of a registered pupil.
Education and Inspections Act 2006, section 103: duty of a parent of an excluded pupil to ensure the pupil is not present in a public place at any time during school hours on a school day.

Penalty notices are not the only means of disposal for these offences. Depending on the circumstances of each case, the CIOS may alternatively decide to issue a caution, or to prosecute the offence in a magistrates’ court, or to take no further action.

Considerations prior to issuing a penalty notice

If the SEND, Belonging and Inclusion Team receives a referral from the school, we will check to confirm that it meets the national threshold for a penalty notice to be issued and to whom.

A penalty notice should only be used as a sanction where there is a reasonable expectation that its use will secure an improvement or change in a pattern of absence. Each referral must contain evidence of the unauthorised absence, all the support that has been offered and information detailing if this support was taken up or rejected by parent or child, any if any support had any improvement at all to attendance.

Careful consideration on a case-by-case basis will be made before issuing a penalty notice to ensure consistency of approach. This would include considering any adjustments to practice and policies to help meet the needs of children who are struggling to attend school, as well any formal reasonable adjustments under section 20 of the Equality Act 2010 where a child has a disability.

Where the school has concerns about the attendance of a student, there is an expectation that they will have made the parent/s aware of the concerns about their child’s attendance and the parent/s have had an opportunity to address this.

Parents should be aware that if they do not make use of support offered and improve their child’s attendance to an acceptable level, this may result in a penalty notice.

The referral should be submitted by the school on the application for a penalty notice form.

The SEND, Belonging and Inclusion Team will keep accurate records of the number of penalty notices issued to individual parents for individual students to prevent duplication and will check prosecution is not ongoing or being considered prior to issue further penalty notices.

Notice to improve

A notice to improve is a final opportunity for a parent to engage in support and improve their child’s attendance before a penalty notice is issued. When a referral is received, the SEND, Belonging and Inclusion Team will consider whether a notice to improve letter should be issued.

There will be an agreed time frame for attendance to improve, this will be known as the improvement period. The notice to improve will detail what sufficient improvement will look like on a case-by-case basis.

The notice will also include grounds on which a penalty notice may be issued before the end of the improvement period. Parents will be informed of this prior to a penalty notice being issued.

The notice to improve letter will contain a warning that should there be further unauthorised absence after the improvement period has ended, a penalty notice may be issued without further warning.

Costs of penalty notices

The fine for school absences is £80 if paid within 21 days, or if the fine is not paid by the first 21 days, it will rise to £160.

If a second penalty notice is issued to:

the same parent
for the same child within a 3-year rolling period

the fine will automatically rise to £160 with no option to pay the lower rate of £80.

If a parent commits a third offence in a 3-year rolling period, other enforcement options will be considered. This could include prosecution.

Each parent can receive a fine for each child who has had unauthorised absence from school. Penalty notices are issued per parent, per child. Therefore, if there are:

two parents, and
two children

the fines will total £320, if paid within 21 days. This increases to £640 if paid after 21 days but within 28 days (or for a second offence)

Withdrawal of a penalty notice

A penalty notice may be withdrawn by the SEND, Belonging and Inclusion Team under the following circumstances:

Where it is deemed that the notice it ought not to have been issued for example; where it has been issued outside the terms of the local code of conduct or where the evidence does not support the issuing of a penalty notice.
It appears that the notice contains material errors.
Where it has been issued to the wrong person named as the recipient.

The SEND, Belonging and Inclusion Team will inform the school about whether penalty notices are paid, withdrawn, or have proceeded to prosecution, due to non-payment.

Any revenues collected through the issuing of penalty notices should be ring-fenced to administer the penalty notice system or to be spent on the Council’s attendance support offer.

There is no right of appeal by parents for a penalty notice.