Changes to School Attendance Policy

The Department for Education (DfE) has published new guidance which will become effective across England from August 2024. These changes set out how schools and the local authority should support children and families where a child isn’t attending school or where there may be attendance concerns. It also sets out the expectations of parents and how all parties should work together to improve a child’s school attendance.  

The guidance further requires schools to monitor and share attendance data and is introducing and updating absence codes to: 

• help better reflect the reasons why pupils are prevented from attending school, due to physical or mental health issues 

• be clear where schools’ role for alternative provision starts and ends 

• provide further clarification around medical evidence, additional support for pupils with SEND and part-time timetables 

The guidance seeks to look at the root causes of absence and highlights the importance of schools working in partnership with families to find supportive routes to improve attendance, facilitate support and remove barriers.  

It will also include the introduction of new absence fines and penalty thresholds within the National Framework for Penalty notices. It is the school’s decision to issue the fines, but the local authority will administer them.  

What is being done locally to support children and young people experiencing issues related to school attendance? 

In light of the policy changes, South Gloucestershire Council last year set about introducing a new two-year funded pilot project - called The Family Link Worker Project - to support children and young people and their families who are experiencing issues relating to school attendance.    

Key points to know about the Family Link Worker project:  

• The project comprises eight Family Link Workers including two seniors, who work directly with families of children and young people (up to the age of 16), for up to six months.  

• If a child or young person is experiencing issues relating to school attendance, schools currently have a variety of support options available to them. But if a school feels that a child may benefit from a Family Link Worker’s support, they can make a referral with the parents’ consent, and this is looked at by the team to see if they can help. A Panel meeting will then determine if a referral to the Family Link Workers meets the criteria.  

• Support can be in many ways including: gaining the child’s and family voice to find out what the barriers are to attending; liaising with the school to see if there are concerns around the timetable; and working to support the child who may be experiencing anxiety around school (the team even bought one young person a bike to help get them to school!). 

• The Family Link Workers are based in the Patchway Hub and Kingswood Hub. 

• All the Family Link Workers have received Emotionally Based School Avoidance (EBSA) training to support the rise in anxiety and mental health.  

We asked Mike Wheeler, Strategic Lead for Statutory Education at South Gloucestershire Council, for his thoughts:  

“School attendance is a hot topic, nationally and locally. There are lots of children missing education due to their absence from school. We are finding that some of the highest levels of absence is for children at SEN support and therefore we are extremely keen to work with parents and professionals to understand the reasons behind this and develop plans to address.  

We have launched a new Local Authority Attendance Strategy, the parent carer forum attendance survey helped us, and confirmed the types of support that children, families and schools would benefit from. This includes Early Help for children and families where school attendance is a concern, support for families who are thinking of home educating, and liaising with schools where there are problems and communication issues. 

Since the start of the academic year we have been putting things in place so that we are able to deliver the activity required to achieve the key objectives of the strategy. This includes greater focus on early identification of the support which families may need in improving their child’s attendance. Therefore, we have created eight Family Link Worker posts as part of the council’s school attendance team and we are extremely grateful to the parent carer forum for their involvement in the recruitment to these new posts. Two teams of family link workers have been established and have been fully operational since January and are already making a difference to families. The Local Authority Attendance Strategy sets out our wish to work with parents and children and schools, and to reduce the number of cases that are taken through the legal process for non-attendance. Legal intervention should only be used as a last resort and only where it will affect change. The strategy and attendance support service is just one of the new developments which we are taking forward this year, including the new SEND Strategy, and more details about these developments will be shared in the near future.”

For more information about the policy

What is EBSA?

Emotionally based school avoidance or EBSA is also commonly referred to as: school anxiety, school refusal and emotionally based school non-attendance/avoidance. All of these are terms are used to describe children and young people (CYP) who experience challenges in attending school due to negative feelings (such as anxiety). EBSA may result in a child or young person:

• Avoiding or prolonging getting dressed in the mornings.

• Refusing to leave the house and/ or transport method to school.

• Showing physical and emotional signs of distress.

• Being reluctant to attend school for the whole week.

• Being unable to attend school at all.