Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what guidance her Department provides to local authorities on the use of prosecutions for school non-attendance in cases where a pupil’s absence is related to special educational needs and disabilities.

The department recognises that pupils with additional needs, such as special educational needs and disabilities, may face more complex barriers to school attendance, and our statutory guidance is clear that schools should take a sensitive, “support first” approach to supporting their attendance. The ’Working Together to Improve School Attendance’ guidance emphasises that schools and local authorities should be working with children and their families to remove any barriers to attendance and building strong and trusting relationships. It makes clear that legal intervention should only be considered when support has been exhausted, not engaged with, or in the cases such as term time holidays, not appropriate.

While some pupils may face additional challenges, we expect schools to have the same attendance ambitions for all pupils, and to put support in place where required.