We are able to provide a full service consultancy process, working with John Leese of Azure Education Consultancy. John has, very kindly, provided some useful template documents for use in attendance cases – scroll to the end to download them!

There’s information about some suggested specialist courses after the list of currently available events. If you’re interested in one of these but can’t see a date for it in the current course list please get in touch and we’ll see what we can do! You’ll also find relevant EW articles at the foot of the page.

These are courses that are suitable for Education Enforcment practitioners – both specialist Education courses and more general investigation events – that are currently available :

---

If you are an EWO or EWM, here are some course suggestions for you :

Exceptional Provision of Education (Section 19 requirements) – Price Code B*
Section 19 of the Education Act 1996 places a duty on Local Authorities to make arrangements for the provision of suitable education for children of compulsory school age who by reason of illness, exclusion or otherwise, are unable to access suitable education without support. This course provides local authorities with the requisite knowledge and skills to make decisions about their Section 19 duties specific to child illness, and how they can successfully deliver provision required by those duties.

Education Penalty Notices – Price Code A
The use of these PNs has been overhauled by the attendance reforms announced in February 2024. The National Penalty Notice Framework, featured within Working Together to Improve School Attendance, places new responsibilities and duties on those issuing penalty notices. This course covers all you’ll need to know to ensure your local authority can issue penalty notices in compliance with the law and the national penalty notice framework, targeting notices appropriately to achieve a positive impact on pupil attendance.

Education Supervision Orders – Price Code B
Education Supervision Orders are a rarely used and often misunderstood tool which, if used
properly, can be far more productive in ensuring children engage successfully with the
education they are legally entitled to. You’ve GOT to consider them, if you’re considering prosecuting, so it’s probably a good idea to come on this course…

School Attendance and Other Orders – Price Code A
A School Attendance Order can be issued when a child is not on the roll of a school, or when
parents of electively home educated children fail to provide a “suitable and efficient” education
to their child and the authority considers it to be in the best interests of the child to attend
school. This and other orders are the end of a long and strictly defined process which ends in the issue of a formal notice, and any slip ups along the way can make that notice invalid.

Managing Enforcement Meetings – Price Code A
Before you get to the stage of considering prosecution, you’ll have a number of enforcement meetings with your clients. Come on this course to discover how to get the best results from an enforcement meeting.

Other Courses
Statement Workshop
If you’re looking to improve the standard of the statements which you write, and you’re confident in the basics, here’s the course for you!

Back to top

---

We run open courses throughout the year. Most of these are suitable for Attendance Enforcement staff. Click the link to see what’s running now!

---

Guidance on Schools Admissions: Applications for Overseas Children

The government has published new guidance on how local authorities, academies and admission authorities should process applications made from another country for a state-funded school place in England. You can view the guidance by clickng here.

Back to top

---

Quiz :What does ‘Regularly’ mean?

After a long wait (and following a lot of ‘to-ing and fro-ing’ and ‘informed’ opinions), the Supreme Court has handed down a judgement in the case of IOW Council v Platt.  It turns out that the ‘long story short’ version is this :  in terms of school attendance, for s.444(1) of the Education Act 1996, regularly means in accordance with the rules prescribed by the school.  The judgement is a lot more detailed and is worth a read but, in case you haven’t the time right now, here is my take on Lady Hale’s reasoning in [2017] UKSC 28 (06 Apr 2017).

In terms of the case, all those involved in school attendance matters need no briefing ;  for other interested parties, suffice to say that Mr Platt sought permission from the head teacher to take his daughter on a term time for a holiday.  Despite this being refused he took her anyway, causing her to miss seven days of schooling.

Section 444(1) of the Education Act 1996 provides that if a child of compulsory school age fails to attend regularly at the school where he is a registered pupil, his parent is guilty of an offence. The issue in this appeal is the meaning of regularly.  Regularly has at least three possible meanings in this provision: it could mean (a) evenly spaced ; (b) sufficiently often ; or (c) in accordance with the rules.

First of all, she addresses the three possible meanings of ‘regular’, setting out how the first two would defeat the act.  She then goes on to examine the third meaning, showing how it must be correct and how, the reasons why sufficiently frequently cannot be right also point towards this being the correct interpretation.

She addresses the concern that ‘a single missed attendance’ without leave or unavoidable cause could lead to criminal liability, pointing out that a sensible prosecution policy addresses that, as does the use of fixed penalty notices (ironic, in that Mr Platt only found himself at risk of a criminal conviction by declining to pay such a notice.)  She also points out that, if very minor cases were prosecuted, the court could choose to deal with them by an absolute or conditional discharge.

The judgement goes beyond just defining regularly, in that it make the point that the whole purpose of the legislation is to bring home to parents how important education is.  The offence, she states, should be seen in context with the obligation, in s.7 of the act, to cause the child to receive full-time education.  Full-time, she says, means “…for the whole of the time when education is being offered to children like the child in question.”

Finally, she makes the point that criminal liability should be construed so as to avoid doubt, so that everyone knows where they stand, what is and is not an offence – which, she rightly says, this interpretation does.  It is consistent with the wording in the remainder of section 444 that a child has not failed to attend regularly if he is absent with [official] leave.  In other words, as she very clearly puts it, Your child is required to attend in accordance with the normal rules laid down by the school authorities for attendance but the school can make an exception in your case.

In the final paragraph of the judgement, she uses words that I’m sure will be repeated to magistrates throughout the country over the coming weeks, months and years, “…he should have been convicted of the offence with which he was charged unless he can establish one of the statutory exceptions”

Back to top

Downloads for EPN course (these may cause new tabs or windows to open, so you may have to ‘allow’ this or disable your pop-up blocker…)

Useful documents for Penalty Notice issue and enforcement may be downloaded here.

You can get a copy of the MG4VPS (and any other MG form you need) from the MG forms page.

An example of the type of tracking that may be carried out via a tracking spreadsheet is here. NOTE we do not recommend using Excel for this purpose, as there are significant risks associated with using spreadsheets to handle large amounts of data.