Attending school regularly is very important for children’s future. Children who miss school frequently are more likely to:
- fall behind with their school work
- do less well in their exams
- be involved in antisocial behaviour or crime
As a last resort, schools may request that the Local Authority Attendance Team use its statutory legal powers to address poor school attendance levels.
Statutory responsibilities
The 1996 Education Act (s7) places a legal responsibility upon parents/carers to make sure that their child fully attends their registered school. This means that your child must attend school every day and on time. This is unless parents/carers can prove that the absence was either:
- with the authorisation of the school, or
- was unavoidable
Penalty Notices
It is the law that all holidays in term time (now called leave of absence) must be agreed to by the Headteacher/ Principal before the holiday is taken. For further details see Holiday in term time - penalty notices
The Local Authority Attendance Team
The Team consists of experienced Education Welfare Officers. We support schools, children and families to raise achievement by promoting:
- High levels of attendance
- attend school regularly
- be punctual
- prevent any absence
- prevent disengagement from school
How we work
The team works through whole-school approaches, providing early intervention and targeted support to pupils and families to address personal and social issues.
We hold meetings in schools and arrange home visits and telephone calls to offer support to families to deal with any attendance-related issues. This helps develop positive working relationships with parents and professionals and helps to improve the life outcomes for everyone we work with.
The Attendance Team also assists the local authority in meeting its statutory requirements with regard to children who do not attend school regularly, monitoring Children Missing from Education and Elective Home Education.
What we offer
Our goal is to identify any barriers stopping children from attending school. Then we work in partnership with parents/carers and other services to remove these barriers.
Working with schools and academies, we provide advice to help with:
- accessing education
- school attendance
- addressing personal and social issues
Support can take a range of forms including:
- proactive support
- one-on-one intervention
- advice and guidance
- legal action
- signposting to other agencies
School Responsibilities
Schools’ responsibilities relating to attendance, detailed in the Education Regulations, include:
- Taking a register twice each day (at the start of the morning session and once during the afternoon)
- Using the appropriate National Attendance Codes
- Making the local authority aware when a pupil has been absent for 10 or more continuous sessions of unauthorised absence*.
- Complying with statutory registration and deletion procedures. For further information see DfE Working together to improve school attendance guidance
If a school has a concern about a pupil's absence, they should intervene early. They should record any contact with the pupil, parents/carers and other agencies. Schools must produce this as evidence if legal intervention is later used.
* Section 19 of the Education Act 1996 requires that where a pupil has been absent for a continuous period of 15 school days (authorised or unauthorised) local authorities assess whether they have a role in providing alternative education.
To prevent a school from having to make two separate alerts on the 10th or 15th day of absence we have created an Attendance Notification Form that MUST be submitted to us on day 15 of cumulative or consecutive unauthorised absence (code O, U, G) or Illness (code I). When we receive the notification, we will assess this based on the information submitted as to whether there is a role for the LA to offer further support.
Support Service Index
To view our Support Service Index, please visit Resources to support partnership work with children/young people and their parents/carers.
Contact Us
For more information, please contact the Local Authority Attendance Team
- Address: Priory Green Building, Whitburn Close, Pendeford, Wolverhampton, WV9 5NJ
- Phone: 01902 550621