Skip to main content
Guidance

School attendance: guidance for schools

Covers registers and attendance codes, school hours, term dates and improving school attendance.

Updates to this page

From:
Department for Education
Published:
25 November 2013
Last updated:
4 August 2022
Show all updates

  1. Removed 'Addendum: recording attendance in relation to coronavirus (COVID-19) during the 2021 to 2022 academic year' as this has been withdrawn.

  2. 'School attendance: main guidance' updated to reflect changes to coronavirus (COVID-19) restrictions.

  3. Updated 'Addendum' to show that schools are no longer advised to record pupils who are not attending school for reasons related to coronavirus using Code X (not attending in circumstances related coronavirus).

  4. Updated the addendum guidance to reflect new public health guidance on tracing close contacts, isolation and when someone has symptoms or a positive test.

  5. Updated the 'Addendum: recording attendance in relation to coronavirus (COVID-19) during the 2021 to 2022 academic year' in line with the UKHSA announcement about confirmatory PCR tests.

  6. Updated to reflect that daily testing is now recommended for contacts of COVID-19.

  7. Updated 'Addendum: recording attendance in relation to coronavirus (COVID-19) during the 2021 to 2022 academic year', section 'Pupils who are a close contact of someone who has symptoms or confirmed COVID-19'.

  8. Addendum: removed information about under-18s that were previously considered clinically extremely vulnerable (CEV).

  9. Added 'Addendum: recording attendance in relation to coronavirus (COVID-19) during the 2021 to 2022 academic year'. Removed 'Addendum: recording attendance in relation to coronavirus (COVID-19) during the 2020 to 2021 academic year'.

  10. 'Securing full attendance: support for schools and local authorities' - updated advice for supporting attendance for children with a social worker and section on actions local authorities might want to take to support attendance.

  11. Added a link to the new set of sub-codes and clarified information in the Data collection section.

  12. Updated to reflect the temporary disapplication of offences for non-attendance in schools during the coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak.

  13. Addendum: recording attendance in relation to coronavirus (COVID-19) during the 2020 to 2021 academic year - updated the number of days a person needs to self isolate after being in contact with someone (member of a household, school community, or local health protection team) who has coronavirus (COVID-19). This is changing from 14 days to 10 days.

  14. Added 'Securing full attendance: support for schools and local authorities' and updated details text to clarify how these documents can be used.

  15. Added 'Addendum' document, updated main guidance document with information about coronavirus (COVID-19) and edited 'details' text to explain the role of the 2 documents for the 2020 to 2021 academic year.

  16. Updated guidance to 30 June 2020.

  17. Updated to reflect changes made under the Coronavirus Act 2020 concerning school attendance.

  18. Updated section 2 of the 'School attendance' guidance to include information on changes to school day and school week.

  19. Replaced 'school attendance' guide with updated version to include advice on making arrangements to safeguard and promote the welfare of children.

  20. Updated to reflect the 2016 amendments to the Education (Pupil Registration) (England) Regulations 2006.

  21. Replaced document to include updates to the section on Code C, on page 9.

  22. First published.

This publication was withdrawn on

Schools should now follow the guidance on working together to improve attendance which has replaced this guidance.

Applies to England

Documents

School attendance: main guidance

Ref: DfE-00132-2020

PDF, 783 KB, 22 pages

Improving school attendance: support for schools and local authorities

HTML

Details

This school attendance guidance applies until the end of this academic year. From September 2022 please follow Working together to improve attendance.

These documents apply to:

  • schools maintained by the local authority
  • academies and free schools
  • pupil referral units (for children who cannot go to a mainstream school)
  • non-maintained special schools (schools for children with special educational needs that the Secretary of State for Education has approved under section 342 of the Education Act 1996)
  • independent schools for pupil registers

About these documents

Main guidance

This should be read in conjunction with the statutory guidance on parental measures for school attendance and behaviour.

Improving school attendance: support for schools and local authorities

This contains principles for an effective whole school strategy for attendance and actions that schools and local authorities can take.

Sign up for emails or print this page