Attendance
Why is this so important ?
Why is good attendance important?
Being around teachers and friends in a school or college environment is the best way for pupils to learn and reach their potential. Time in school also keeps children safe and provides access to extra-curricular opportunities and pastoral care.
What if my child needs to miss school?
Parents and carers have a legal duty to ensure your child gets a full time-education. Usually, that means going into school from the age of 5 to 16.
There are only a small number of circumstances where missing a school day is permitted. Your child must attend every day that the school is open, unless:
Your child is too ill to attend.
You have asked in advance and been given permission by the school for your child to be absent on a specific day due to exceptional circumstances.
Your child cannot go to school on a specific day because they are observing a religious event.
Your local authority is responsible for arranging your child’s transport to school and it’s not available or has not been provided yet.
Your child does not have a permanent address and you are required to travel for work. This exception only applies if your child attends their usual school or another school where you are staying as often as possible. This must be 200 half days or more a year if they are aged 6 or older.
Further guidance on how to help your child to attend school is available here.
Recent BBC news article
More than one in five children in England are frequently missing school, data shows, in a sign attendance is still struggling to get back to pre-pandemic levels.
The children's commissioner said some children play truant while others experience anxiety or have educational needs so find it easier at home.
Parents should get children back to school, urged Dame Rachel de Souza.
Before the pandemic, just over one in 10 students were persistently absent.
Pupils count as persistently absent if they miss 10% or more of their school days, which is roughly one or more days every fortnight over the school year.
Over the last academic year, Department for Education (DfE) figures show 22.3% of pupils in England were persistently absent.
Speaking to BBC's Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg, Dame Rachel said this equated to 1.8 million children, and estimated that 100,000 of those were playing truant.
"We've got a real problem post-pandemic around attendance," she said. "1.8 million of an eight million cohort is huge... that's double the number from before the pandemic".
In 2018/9 before the pandemic, around one in 10 children (10.9%) were persistently absent.
A breakdown of figures shows that the problem is most marked among children on free school meals (37.9%) and those with an education, health and care plan (33.4%).
Dame Rachel said it was really important to get those children who were anxious and "refusing on an emotional basis" back to school.
