School Rules on Attendance

A lot of confusion has been thrown around in regards to the change in the Department of educations rules on school attendance and the new fines for parents. This started as of the 19th August 2024. No previous penalty notices prior to this date will be counted you start fresh from 19th August 2024.

Here we will take a look at the rules and break them down into less mumbo jumbo and a little more parent friendly.

What changed - main changes are that unauthorised abcence was originally per accademic year. Now it has changed to 3 years from the first unauthorised absence causing a penalty notice to be issued.

The fines - They have increase from £60 per parent if paid in the first 28 days to £80 if payed in the first 21 days on the first instance, £160 per parent if paid from 21-28 days . The next change is if a second fine is issued it will have a fixed £160 per parent for each child if paid in 28 days. After 2 notices no further notices can be issued in the 3 year period dating from the issue of the first penalty notice.

What triggers a fine? - unauthorised absence which will include term time holidays and lateness. school days are broken down into 2 sessions a day. You must not have more than 10 sessions of unauthorised abscence in a 10 week rolling period. If however your child is on time for school each day you can take 9 sessions out of school in a 10 week period without triggering a penalty notice. Just remember this period rolls its not fixed so you need to be attending and not late for 10 weeks.