Your child or children should be:
- attending school everyday unless there is a very good reason for their absence
- getting to school on time
- present at school for both morning and afternoon sessions
As a parent you have a legal responsibility to ensure your child attends school regularly. If you’re child fails to attend school regularly you may be guilty of a criminal offence. If your child is experiencing difficulties attending school you should discuss this with the school in the first instance.
Children who attend school regularly are more likely to:
- keep up with school work
- develop good habits and important life skills
- maintain friendships
- gain better qualifications
- have access to a wider range of opportunities when they leave school
- stay away from harm
Your parental duties around children’s education
As a parent or a guardian of a child registered at a school you:
- must make sure that their children receive efficient full time education in school or elsewhere
- must make sure that the child attends regularly
- should inform the school of the reasons for any unavoidable absence on the first day
When children have to start school and leave school
Children must receive full-time education from the start of the school term after their fifth birthday until the end of June in the school year in which they turn 16.
Leave of absence
Only the headteacher can decide if the reason given for absence is acceptable. If the head teacher decides that the reason given for absence is unacceptable, the absence will remain unauthorised.
Schools can only agree a leave of absence in term time for exceptional circumstances. All requests must be made in advance by contacting the school.
Schools will consider each application individually taking into account the specific facts, circumstances and relevant background context to the request.
If the leave of absence is granted it is for the school to determine the length of time the pupil can be absent from school. Schools cannot agree a leave of absence retrospectively.
Generally, 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. Therefore, any leave taken for the purpose of a holiday is unlikely to be regarded as an exceptional circumstance.
Penalty notices for unauthorised absence
Penalty notices are one of the sanctions that can be used if a child is absent from school without agreement.
Penalty notices are a direct alternative to prosecution. They are issued per parent per child. The amount of the fine and the timescale for payment is set in legislation. The law does not allow penalty notices to be paid in instalments or through a payment plan. They must be paid in full by the date given in the notice.
To make sure penalty notices are issued fairly each local authority has to have a code of conduct which explains the law and how a decision to issue is made:
Penalty notice for unauthorised absence (PDF , 155KB)
There is a single consistent national threshold for when a penalty notice must be considered by all schools in England of 10 sessions (usually equivalent to five school days) of unauthorised absence within a rolling 10 school week period. These sessions do not have to be consecutive and can be made up of a combination of any type of unauthorised absence. The 10-school week period can span different terms or school years.