Pupils: Absenteeism
The question
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what her Department's rules and guidance are regarding schools being able to remove pupils from school after being absent for a set number of consecutive days.
Answered by Olivia Bailey
As set out in the ‘Working together to improve school attendance’ guidance, a pupil’s name can only be deleted from the admission register for a reason set out in regulation 9 of the School Attendance (Pupil Registration) (England) Regulations 2024.
Under ground 1 of this legislation, a pupil can only be removed if they have been continuously absent from school for a period of 20 school days or more, and the school does not have reasonable grounds to believe the pupil will attend because of sickness or unavoidable cause, or if the school and local authority have made reasonable efforts to find out the pupil’s local and circumstances and not succeeded. A pupil’s name must not be removed for any other reason and doing so could constitute off-rolling.
This government is committed to the introduction of Children Not in School registers which will help local authorities to identify children not in school in their areas, particularly those who are missing education.
Schools should notify the local authority when a pupil is removed from the school roll due to being absent for the set number of consecutive days, however the department does not collect or hold this data centrally.
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