Melling Primary School
ATTENDANCE - PLEASE BE AWARE OF NEW GUIDELINES
25th November 2024
ATTENDANCE INFORMATION - UNAUTHORISED ABSENCES
Dear Parents/Carers
As you know, new DfE guidelines for managing attendance in schools were implemented in August 2024. Part of the revised legislation requires schools to monitor absences, especially those that are unauthorised. An unauthorised absence might be (not an exhaustive list):
- holiday
- absence when the reason for absence has not been given
- a day out
- a late arrival after the register has closed
Governors delegate duties to Headteachers to monitor absences and to identify when a referral for a penalty notice needs to be implemented.
Parents/carers must be aware of the criteria for this as stated in the guidelines:
11.4 National Framework for Penalty Notice - There is now a single consistent national threshold for when a penalty notice must be considered by all schools in England, of 10 sessions (usually equivalent to 5 school days) of unauthorised absence within a rolling 10 school week period. The 10 sessions of absence do not have to be consecutive and can be made up of a combination of any type of unauthorised absence (G, O and/or U coded within the school’s registers). The 10-school week period can span different terms, school years or education settings.
In other words – if 5 unauthorised absences have been noted within a ten week period, then a penalty notice referral will be made. This is cumulative, so this could include 5 days taken in a row, or it could include, for example 3 days at the start of the 10 weeks then 2 days at the end.
Please be aware of this, as unauthorised absences are being monitored by school and Sefton’s Attendance Officer.