Our local authority and schools can use various legal powers if your child is missing school without a good reason. These are:
- a Parenting Order;
- an Education Supervision Order;
- a School Attendance Order;
- a fine (sometimes known as a 'penalty notice').
You can be given one or more of these but our local authority does not have to do this before prosecuting you.
Parenting Order
This means you have to go to parenting classes. You'll also have to do what the court says to improve your child's school attendance.
Education Supervision Order
If the local authority thinks you need support getting your child to go to school but you're not co-operating, they can apply to a court for an Education Supervision Order.
An officer will be appointed to help you get your child into education. Our local authority can do this instead of prosecuting you, or as well.
School Attendance Order
You'll get a School Attendance Order if our local authority thinks your child is not getting an education.
You have 15 days to provide evidence that you've registered your child with the school listed in the order or that you're giving them home education. If you do not, you could be prosecuted or given a fine.
Fine
The government made changes to the legislation in August 2024.
These changes mean that there is now a single consistent national threshold for when a penalty notice must be considered of 10 sessions (usually equivalent to 5 school days) of unauthorised absence within a rolling 10 school week period.
The amount payable under the first Penalty Notice is £160 if paid within 28 days beginning on the date which the notice is received.
This will be reduced to £80 if paid within 21 days ,beginning on the date which the notice is received.
Any second penalty notice issued to the same parent for the same child within a rolling 3-year period will be charged at a higher rate of £160 with no option for this second offence to be discharged at the lower rate of £80.
No one parent will receive more than 2 penalty notices for the same child within a rolling 3-year period, so at the 3rd (or subsequent) offence(s) other options will be considered (such as prosecution or one of the other attendance legal interventions).
A penalty notice issued for any offence that begins prior to the 19th August will be issued under the existing rules. Therefore, it will (a) be charged at £60/£120, (b) not count towards the escalation whereby a second penalty notice within 3 years is charged at a flat rate of £160 and there is a limit of 2 penalty notices within 3 years and (c) should be issued in line with existing LA thresholds for the 2023-24 academic year.
This is regardless of whether the penalty notice is issued before or after the 19th August.
For example, if a parent takes a pupil out of school without leave in term time for 2 weeks in July 2024 but the penalty notice is not issued until September the old rules will be followed, including being charged at the old rates. The penalty notice will not count towards the escalation.
Or, for example, a parent takes a pupil out of school in late July without permission and does not return until September and the penalty notice is issued at the beginning of October, the old rules will be followed, including being charged at the old rates of £60/£120.
The penalty notice will not count towards the escalation.
Prosecution
You could get a fine of up to £2,500, a community order or a jail sentence up to 3 months. The court also gives you a Parenting Order.
More information about penalty notices can be found in the document below:
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