Parents have a duty, under Section 7 of the Education Act 1996, to ensure that their child of compulsory school age (5-16) receives an efficient full-time education either by attendance at school or otherwise.

If parents register their child at school, the law places a duty on parents to ensure their child of compulsory school age attends school regularly.

A penalty notice is a fine issued to parents for failing to secure their child’s regular attendance at school. The Parental Responsibility Measures Attendance census collects data from local authorities annually on parental responsibility measures issued to address poor attendance in state-funded schools. It is a matter for schools and local authorities to decide whether to issue a penalty notice for unauthorised term time absence.

The Department has not formally assessed the impact of penalty notices, but comparable data shows overall absence rates have remained fairly stable across recent years, following a generally downward trend since 2006/07 (4.8% in 2017/18, compared to 6.5% in 2006/07).

The Department trusts schools to record, authorise and monitor attendance effectively and to work constructively with individual parents and pupils to improve school attendance where it is a problem.

The law places a duty on parents to ensure that their child attends school regularly where the child is of compulsory school age and registered at a school. The Education Act 1996 also sets out the situations in which an absent pupil will not be taken to have failed to attend school regularly, such as where the child was prevented from attending due to illness.

The Department recognises that mental health problems can have an impact on a pupil’s attendance and the guidance to schools is clear that they should authorise pupil absence due to illness (both physical and mental health related) unless they have genuine cause for concern about the veracity of an illness. If the authenticity of illness is in doubt, schools can request parents to provide medical evidence to support absence, but this is not mandatory.

The statutory Special Educational Need and Disability Code of Practice sets out the approach that schools should take when staff notice an emerging issue, including mental health issues. Where more serious problems occur, schools should expect pupils and families to be able to access support from specialist services.

Local authorities must arrange suitable full-time education for children of compulsory school age who, because of illness, would not receive suitable education without such provision. The Department’s statutory guidance states that local authorities should provide such education as soon as it is clear that a child will be away from school for 15 days or more, whether consecutive or cumulative.

The Department trusts schools to record, authorise and monitor attendance effectively and to work constructively with individual parents and pupils to improve school attendance where it is a problem.

The law places a duty on parents to ensure that their child attends school regularly where the child is of compulsory school age and registered at a school. The Education Act 1996 also sets out the situations in which an absent pupil will not be taken to have failed to attend school regularly, such as where the child was prevented from attending due to illness.

The Department recognises that mental health problems can have an impact on a pupil’s attendance and the guidance to schools is clear that they should authorise pupil absence due to illness (both physical and mental health related) unless they have genuine cause for concern about the veracity of an illness. If the authenticity of illness is in doubt, schools can request parents to provide medical evidence to support absence, but this is not mandatory.

The statutory Special Educational Need and Disability Code of Practice sets out the approach that schools should take when staff notice an emerging issue, including mental health issues. Where more serious problems occur, schools should expect pupils and families to be able to access support from specialist services.

Local authorities must arrange suitable full-time education for children of compulsory school age who, because of illness, would not receive suitable education without such provision. The Department’s statutory guidance states that local authorities should provide such education as soon as it is clear that a child will be away from school for 15 days or more, whether consecutive or cumulative.

The Department trusts schools to record, authorise and monitor attendance effectively and to work constructively with individual parents and pupils to improve school attendance where it is a problem.

The law places a duty on parents to ensure that their child attends school regularly where the child is of compulsory school age and registered at a school. The Education Act 1996 also sets out the situations in which an absent pupil will not be taken to have failed to attend school regularly, such as where the child was prevented from attending due to illness.

The Department recognises that mental health problems can have an impact on a pupil’s attendance and the guidance to schools is clear that they should authorise pupil absence due to illness (both physical and mental health related) unless they have genuine cause for concern about the veracity of an illness. If the authenticity of illness is in doubt, schools can request parents to provide medical evidence to support absence, but this is not mandatory.

The statutory Special Educational Need and Disability Code of Practice sets out the approach that schools should take when staff notice an emerging issue, including mental health issues. Where more serious problems occur, schools should expect pupils and families to be able to access support from specialist services.

Local authorities must arrange suitable full-time education for children of compulsory school age who, because of illness, would not receive suitable education without such provision. The Department’s statutory guidance states that local authorities should provide such education as soon as it is clear that a child will be away from school for 15 days or more, whether consecutive or cumulative.

Penalty notices are issued to parents by schools, local authorities or the police for failing to ensure that if their child is of compulsory school age, they regularly attend the state-funded school where they are registered or at the place where alternative provision is provided for them.

The statistical publication 'Parental Responsibility Measures in England: 2017 to 2018' includes the numbers of penalty notices issued in England in table 1. The release is available here:

https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/parental-responsibility-measures-2017-to-2018.

The data shows the number of penalty notices issued to parents; if a parent has received more than one penalty notice then each penalty notice would be counted. The number of parents who have received a penalty notice is not available.

Collected information contains reasons for why penalty notices are issued and is broken down by 'unauthorised family holiday absence', 'arriving late' and 'absence due to other unauthorised circumstances'. Data is not collected specifically on the number issued due to truancy.

Parents have a duty to ensure their child of compulsory school age, who is registered at school, attends regularly.

We have not formally assessed the impact of penalty notices but comparable data shows overall absence rates have remained fairly stable across recent years, following a downward trend since 2006/07 (4.7% in 2016/17, compared to 6.5% in 2006/07).

Parents have a duty to ensure that their children who are registered at school attend regularly. We have not formally assessed the impact of penalty notices, but comparable data shows that overall absence rates have remained stable in recent years following a downward trend since 2006—a 6.5% absence rate in 2006 fell to 4.7% in 2016.

A recent report commissioned by the Welsh Government has shown that fining parents for unauthorised school absence has had no impact on raising attendance levels in Wales. Is it not time to have a review of that policy in England and, if the evidence shows that it does not work, to drop it?