School attendance

Parents are responsible for ensuring that their children of compulsory school age receive efficient full-time education that is suitable to the child’s age, ability and aptitude and to any special educational needs the child may have. This can be by regular attendance at school, alternative provision, or by ‘education otherwise’ (i.e. elective home education). 

Where a parent fails to secure adequate provision the local authority must, after giving appropriate warning, serve a School Attendance Order on a parent, requiring the parent to register the child at a named school. It is a criminal offence to fail to comply with such an order, and it is a criminal offence if the parent does not ensure that the child registered at the school attends regularly.

There are, however, statutory defences - for example, where the child is ill. And there is a link between the school transport provisions and school attendance as the absence of necessary home-school transport (as defined) is a defence against non-attendance.

Holidays during term-time

Parents cannot authorise absence; only schools can do this. Head teachers have discretion to grant leave during school term-time, but this is not an automatic entitlement. The law governing such leave of absences was tightened up from September 2013. Head teachers may not grant leave of absence during term-time unless there are exceptional circumstances.

School complaints

All school governing bodies should have a procedure to deal with complaints relating to aspects of the school and to any community facilities or services that the school provides. The procedure must be publicised.

A complaint about a local authority maintained school may be made to the Secretary of State for Education if the complainant believes that the governing body is acting ‘unreasonably’ or is failing to carry out its statutory duties. Complaints about academies are handled by the Education Funding Agency (EFA) on behalf of the Secretary of State. A typical procedure may be:

• An opportunity to resolve the complaint on an informal basis, for example through discussion with a senior member of staff;

• A formal complaint stage when the complaint is made in writing and usually responded to by the chair of governors; an

• A hearing with a panel set up by the academy trust, comprising at least three people not directly involved in the matters detailed in the complaint, one of whom must be independent of the management and running of the school.