Education: Mandatory Attendance Guidance

Updated Department for Education guidance on attendance has been mandatory from 19 August 2024. The guidance applies to all schools, including Independent Schools, and includes new absence codes, new absence fine rates, and new thresholds at which penalties must be considered.

You may wish to review your school’s attendance policy and update your policy to:

• Be clear on the link between improving attendance and the wider school culture, including the importance of working in partnership with families to find supportive routes to improve attendance.
• Reflect the changes to the law on keeping school attendance and admission registers. These changes include a revised set of codes and changes to granting leaves of absence. There are also new rules on access to and sharing of attendance information introduced through the School Attendance (Pupil Registration) (England) Regulations 2024.
• Update the sections of your policy relating to pupils who are prevented from attending school due to physical or mental ill health, to be clear where your school’s role starts and ends, and to provide further clarification around medical evidence, additional support for pupils with special educational needs and disabilities, and part-time timetables.
• Explain the new requirements for schools on data analysis and sharing introduced through the Education (Information about Individual Pupils) (England) (Amendment) Regulations 2024.
• Provide the details for your school's Senior Attendance Champion, which is now a mandatory role, and provide a clarification of the expectations of this role.
• Reflect the changes to your monitoring duties and your data analysis duties which now include a duty to identify trends including trends at subject level.

Contact us

The new attendance guidance offers an opportunity for schools to improve the accuracy and consistency of their attendance data. For information on how we can support you with updating your school’s attendance policy, please contact a member of our Education team or submit an enquiry form, below.