Attendance guidance
The guidance from the Department for Education (DfE) – Gov.UK: Working together to improve school attendance is statutory, and schools, trusts, governing bodies, and local authorities must have regard to it as part of their efforts to maintain high levels of school attendance.
This guidance should be read alongside the statutory guidance documents on children missing education, supporting pupils with medical conditions at school, education for children with health needs who cannot attend school, suspensions and exclusions, The School Attendance (Pupil Registration) (England) Regulations 2024, alternative provision, Keeping Children Safe in Education and Working together to safeguard children.
Where this guidance refers to a parent, the school and/or local authority will need to decide which adult is most appropriate to work with. Generally, parents include:
- all natural parents, whether they are married or not.
- all those who have parental responsibility for a child or young person.
- those who have day to day responsibility for the child (i.e. lives with and looks after the child).
Please click on this link for a summary of statutory expectations for schools in relation to school attendance - Summary table of responsibilities for school attendance (applies from 19 August 2024) (publishing.service.gov.uk)
Updates in the Working together to improve School Attendance from September 2026 and following feedback received by the DfE:
- Greater clarity on expectations for schools’ day-to-day practice, including taking the register at the same time for all pupils.
- Further guidance on analysing and monitoring attendance, including improved advice on benchmarking, clearer expectations around identifying key cohorts, and explicit inclusion of young carers.
- Clarified approaches to managing absence, including clearer direction on illness related absence (and when medical evidence may be appropriate) and reinforcing that (in line with DfE’s guidance on ‘Providing remote education’) remote education should only be used as a last resort and as part of a reintegration plan.
- Clarified the use of leave of absence for exceptional circumstances, including that as well as considering each application on its individual merits, schools should not operate blanket policies that result in leave of absence being granted automatically.
- Improved clarity on roles and system leadership, including the role of local authorities to provide strategic leadership, and clearer expectations on collaboration across trusts, schools and local partners.
- Clarifications to support consistent use of the attendance register and codes, including dual registration, flexi-schooling, no fixed abode, access arrangements, and when specific codes (e.g. Q, D, Y6, U) should be applied.
- Targeted legal and technical clarifications, including around removing the names of pupils included in the admission register in error, the application of “reasonable distance” (Ground G), and references to reasonable adjustments
The Model Policy has been updated to reflect some of the changes listed above.
The DfE expect all schools to have a clear, published Attendance Policy which has been reviewed and is compliant with DfE Guidance. Please see document below for support with this.
Gov.UK: Children missing education
Gov. UK: Alternative provision
Gov.UK: Education for children with health needs who cannot attend school
Gov.UK: Keeping children safe in education
Mental Health Issues affecting school attendance
Following DfE Guidance – Mental Health Issues affecting a pupil’s school attendance – dated February 2023, the Statutory Attendance Support Team has developed an information sheet to help schools and professionals understand how to interpret and approach practice, when required, to support a pupil who may have mental health which is impacting on their school attendance.
Gov.UK: Mental heath issues affecting a pupils attendance guidance for schools