Children registered at a school must attend school unless there is genuine reason given for their absence.

There are many reasons why young people fail to attend school regularly, if you are experiencing any problems in the first instance you should contact the school who should help you to resolve these problems. If you are still experiencing problems you can contact an attendance officer.

Fixed penalty notices for school absence

The Department for Education (DfE) have recently updated national guidance to support parents, schools and local authorities (LAs) in improving school attendance. The guidance, Working together to improve school attendance, is statutory.

On page 56 you will find the national framework for the use of Fixed Penalty Notices. If you are worried that deciding to take your child out of school might lead to you receiving a Fixed Penalty Notice, please read this section of the guidance.

Our School Attendance Service will be considering and issuing fixed penalty notices in line with the DfE’s statutory guidance. To avoid worrying about getting a fixed penalty notice, please make sure your child attends school where possible.

Our code of conduct explains when we will consider issuing a fixed penalty notice for school absence.

The attendance team

• Works with schools and other agencies to identify pupils with school attendance issues.
• Works with parents who may be experiencing difficulty with their children in ensuring they attend school regularly
• Works directly with pupils to solve difficulties that may be affecting their attendance at school.
• Works with the parents of pupils of statutory school age within a statutory framework. This may lead to prosecution if attendance fails to improve.
• Seeks to promote equal opportunities in education for all children
• Use statistical analysis as a means of targeting resources and identifying specific school related issues.
• Give advice and support
• Develop partnerships between home and school
• Identify children who are missing in education.

Children missing education

A child missing in education is defined as:

“Any child of compulsory school age (5-16) who is not registered at any formally approved education activity and has been out of any education provision for a substantial period of time”

The council works with key partners including schools, housing, health, social care, youth offending team and the police. All of these agencies work together and manage the risk of pupils who may be missing education.

In Warrington children fall out of the education system and are at risk of going missing because they:

• Fail to start appropriate provision and so never enter the system
• Fail to complete a transition between schools
• Cease to attend, due to exclusion or withdrawal, removal from roll with no named destination.