Changes to attendance from September

As you may be aware, the government have changed some aspects of school attendance from August 2024. We will write to you with more details next year but we thought it useful to give you the main changes:

1. There is still a strong focus on supporting families to ensure their child is in school regularly and receives their educational entitlement.
2. School’s will need to inform the council of any pupils off school for illness for 15 consecutive or cumulative days in a year.
3. There will be a national fine threshold: this will be 10 sessions (5 days) unauthorised in a 10 school week period, as opposed to Bristol’s current 8 sessions.
4. Fines will increase from £60 to £80, this is per parent per child.
5. Fines will double if another fine is applied within a 3-year rolling period.
6. If there is a 3^rd occurrence within the 3-year period, the case will be referred to Bristol City Council’s Educational Welfare Service for prosecution, this may result in a £2,500 fine per parent, per child. This may also occur, at the discretion of the council, if parents are repeatedly just below the threshold.
7. Any money generated from fines to local authorities has to be ringfenced to improve school attendance.

For more details, the full government document is available here – this pre-dates the change in government but remains in place to start in the new academic year. As a school we recognise the vital importance of regular school attendance and the impact it has on your child’s learning; we will do whatever we can to support our families in ensuring their child is in school.

Kind regards

Justin