Question from Councillor E Venables to the Cabinet Member – Children & Young People

On the 9 December 2014 Cabinet ratified the new Code of Conduct for issuing Fixed Penalty Notices for Unauthorised Absence from school. The new Code advises head teachers to NOT authorise ANY term holidays (apart from exceptional circumstances) Can you please explain how this complies with the All Wales Attendance Framework, the Education (Pupil Registration) (Wales) Regulations 2010 and the Education (Penalty Notice) (Wales) Regulations 2013

TO RECEIVE THE FOLLOWING QUESTION FOR THE EXECUTIVE

Question from Councillor Elaine Venables to the Cabinet Member – Children and Young People.

On the 9th December 2014, Cabinet ratified the new Code of Conduct for issuing Fixed Penalty Notices for Unauthorised Absence from School.  The new Code advises head teachers to NOT authorise ANY term time holidays (apart from exceptional circumstances).  Can you please explain how this complies with the All Wales Attendance Framework, the Education (Pupil Registration) (Wales) Regulations 2010 and the Education (Penalty Notice) (Wales) Regulations 2013?

Response from the Cabinet Member – Children and Young People

In line with the All Wales Attendance Framework the roles and responsibilities of parents, school and the EWS are made clear. The Education Act 1996, Section 7, provides that a parent is responsible for ensuring their child attends school regularly and that a school under the Education (Pupil Registration) (Wales) Regulations 2010 is required to undertake a register twice a day, once in the morning and once in the afternoon to determine and record pupil attendance.

 Also, under section 437 of the Education Act 1996, Local Authorities have a duty to ensure that a child for whom they are responsible is receiving suitable education either by regular school attendance or otherwise.

Under the Education (Pupil Registration) (Wales) Regulations 2010 schools have a discretionary power to grant leave for the purposes of a holiday. There is no automatic right to withdraw pupils from school for a holiday and in law parents have to apply for permission in advance. The Regulations state that only in exceptional cases should a pupil be granted more than 10 school days leave in any school year. Whilst Heads have this discretion, BCBC is advising schools to use their discretion to not authorise term time holidays except where exceptional circumstances apply. Such exceptions would include, but are not limited to, pupils whose parents are in the armed forces, in recognition of the Council’s commitment to the Armed Forces Covenant

Bridgend County Borough Council’s advice to Head teachers is to look at individual requests on a case by case basis and make decisions based on the individual circumstances of the case as the list of exceptional circumstances is not exhaustive.  Holidays being cheaper in term time is not an exceptional circumstance. If the holiday is authorised then a FPN will not be requested.

Welsh Government guidance (All Wales Attendance Framework) clearly states that parents should not expect, or be led to expect, that schools will agree to family holidays in term time. Schools may need to remind parents of this and refer to their cluster attendance policy. When considering requests, a list of factors such as time of year, length and purpose of holiday, circumstances of family, overall attendance of the pupil, duration of the holiday and its impact on continuity of learning should be considered.

Where parents fail to apply for permission then this should result in an unauthorised holiday.

He reminded colleagues of the reasoning behind the requirement to introduce Fixed Penalty Notices. The reason for this was to improve school attendance figures in Wales, as it was well researched and evidenced that there was a link between attendance and attainment. For example, if a child was in school only 80% of the maximum time he/she could be, the chance of them attaining 5 GCSE’s equated to just 20%. As their attendance improves their attainment in obtaining GCSE’s improves and this is in line with regulations and the School Attendance Strategy. It was incumbent upon the Corporate Director - Children to feed information such as this to all headteachers and it was then up to them to make a decision regarding any application by parents for their children to be absent from school outside of statutory school holiday periods dependent upon each individual case. There are extreme exceptions that would allow for a child(ren) to be granted special leave, for example if their parent(s) were in the armed forces etc, and were due leave home for a specific period.

 Supplementary question (1) from Councillor Elaine Venables

In paragraph 3 above, it says that BCBC advises headteachers to not authorise any term time holidays and then paragraph 4 of the reply goes on to say that requests should be decided on individual circumstances which may be an exceptional circumstance.

Therefore, BCBC’s advice does not comply with the Welsh Government guidelines and regulations. As they categorically state that a term time holiday, regardless of exceptional circumstances, should be assessed on individual circumstances on a case by case basis.

She asked then, if BCBC as an Authority, will penalise headteachers and schools in any way, if they choose to follow Welsh Government guidelines and not BCBC advice.

Response from Cabinet Member – Children and Young People and Corporate Director - Children

The Cabinet Member – Children and Young People responded by saying that the key word here was advises, in that it was ultimately up to the headteacher in any school to make a decision as to whether a child should be granted special leave from school. Headteachers and their schools were judged through Estyn inspections on a number of key issues, and one of these was good attendance by pupils. As a local Authority, BCBC were responsible and legally required to ensure that pupils had a good school attendance record.

The Corporate Director – Children added that under 7.8 of the Council’s School Attendance Strategy, there was a minimum of 10 unauthorised absence (5 school days) that could be granted to a child or young person. Bullet point 3. Of 7.8, stated that unauthorised absence could be taken due to a family having a term time holiday, ie when the duration of the holiday extends over the end of that statutory term holiday period.

Under the provisions of the Code of Conduct, she added that there needed to be a minimum of 10 days unauthorised absence from school before a Fixed Penalty Notice could be issued, though there were other instances where they could be issued aside of unauthorised absence.

Supplementary question (2) from Councillor Cheryl Green

There are concerns that families with lower incomes are going to bear the brunt of any possible issuing of Fixed Penalty Notices, in that the cost of a holiday in periods where there are statutory school holidays, especially the school summer holiday period, far exceeds the cost of the same holiday in term time. She asked if there was any evidence to suggest, that the children of families who take term time holidays away aren’t so successful in terms of attainment academically speaking, as children whose families take time off in school holiday periods.

Response from Cabinet Member – Children and Young People and Corporate Director – Children

The Cabinet Member – Children and Young People advised that he had no information to hand to confirm this or otherwise, so he would endeavour to obtain a response to this question and forward this to the Member outside of the meeting. He was aware of the fact that there was a direct correlation between poor attendance at school and that young person’s subsequent academic attainment. It was irrelevant he felt as to the reason for their absence, as if they are in school they are obviously learning. A week absence from school in term time was bound to have some detrimental effect on their attainment as they were then missing 35 hours of teaching, that was hard to catch-up on when they returned to school.

The Corporate Director – Children added that it was a statutory duty for children to attend school for the purpose of receiving education. There was a maximum of 190 days school time a year, and this left including weekends and school holiday periods, 175 days where children could be at home or away on family holidays. It was proven that 20 days absence from school a year, would have a big impact on a child’s ability to aspire to reaching their maximum in terms of potential from an attainment perspective. She had some concerns over the fact that headteachers at some primary schools routinely authorised absence for children in term time, in that they could authorise up to a maximum of 10 days absence per year. Headteachers who allowed this to take place and for a number of different pupils, would however be then leaving themselves and the school open to having a poor assessment for attendance if they were then subject to an Inspection by Estyn. Schools were therefore monitored by the local authority so as to address any such problem should it occur. She emphasised the point that the issuing of Fixed Penalty Notices was seen as a last attempt to resolve problems such as continued absence from school in term time. Prior to that, meetings would take place with the family and the child to address any problem associated with a child’s continued or regular absence.

Supplementary question (3) from Councillor Della Hughes

The Member referred to Section 7.8 of the School Attendance Strategy that was recently approved by Cabinet and that bullet point 3 of this section confirmed that Fixed Penalty Notices could be used for unauthorised absence due to a term time holiday, but it did not specify how many days should be taken in cases of this, before a Fixed Term Penalty would be issued. She added that the previous two bullet points in 7.8 stated the number of absences allowed ie minimum of 10 unauthorised absences (5 school days) in the current term, that do not need to be consecutive, and a minimum of 10 sessions of lateness after close of registration. She therefore asked, did this mean that a Fixed Penalty Notice could be issued if a parent took a child out of school for 1 or 2 days (eg if the family were going away for the weekend), or should this bullet point state 10 sessions the same as the other two bullet points.

Response from the Cabinet Member – Children and Young People

The Cabinet Member – Children and Young People replied that it was 10 unauthorised absences as referred to in the other two bullet points in 7.8 and that this was illustrated in Section 6.1 of the Strategy.