Please complete the form below for absences and refer to the WSCC Unauthorised absence letter.

The latest Government guidance has been consulted to ensure that we follow the law - see 'Working Together to Improve School Attendance' via this link.

Key Government guidance:

• Parents have an additional legal duty to ensure their child attends 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.

• Attendance is the essential foundation to positive outcomes for all pupils including their safeguarding and welfare.

  • Children meeting the expected standard at the end of KS2 have an overall absence rate of 3.5% compared to 4.7% for those not meeting.

• The Government have tightened the laws for Headteachers:

  • All schools can grant a leave of absence for exceptional circumstances. The DfE does not consider a need or desire for a holiday or other absence for the purpose of leisure and recreation to be an exceptional circumstance.

  • 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 registered (e.g. an unauthorised holiday in term time).

  • The threshold for a penalty notice is 10 sessions (am or pm) of unauthorised absence in a rolling period of 10 school weeks.

    • A school week means any week in which there is at least one school session.

    • This can be met with any combination of unauthorised absence (e.g. 4 sessions of holiday taken in term time plus 6 sessions of arriving late after the register closes all within 10 school weeks).

    • These sessions can be consecutive (e.g. 10 sessions of holiday in one week) or not (e.g. 6 sessions of unauthorised absence taken in 1 week and 1 per week for the next 4 weeks).

    • The period of 10 school weeks can also span different terms or school years (e.g. 2 sessions of unauthorised absence in the Summer Term and a further 8 within the Autumn Term).

  • Where absence escalates and pupils miss 10% or more of school (equivalent to 1 day or more a fortnight across a full school year), schools and local authorities are expected to work together to put additional targeted support in place to remove any barriers to attendance and reengage these pupils.