Home Education: Attendance

(asked on 4th February 2022) - View Source

Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if he will introduce an attendance code to specifically authorise home learning whilst children in risk groups, as defined in table 4 of the Green Book Chapter 14a, are awaiting full covid-19 vaccination.


Answered by
Robin Walker Portrait
Robin Walker
This question was answered on 10th February 2022

Regular attendance at school is vital for children’s education, wellbeing and long-term development. School attendance is mandatory and parents have a duty, under section 7 of the Education Act 1996, to ensure that their child of compulsory age receives an efficient full-time education either by attendance at school or otherwise.

Following expert clinical advice and the successful rollout of the COVID-19 vaccine programme, people previously considered to be particularly vulnerable, clinically extremely vulnerable (CEV), and high or higher-risk are no longer advised to shield.

Children and young people previously considered CEV should attend school and should follow the same COVID-19 guidance as the rest of the population. This guidance is available here: https://www.gov.uk/coronavirus. If, however, a child or young person has been advised to isolate or reduce their social contact by their specialist, due to the nature of their medical condition or treatment, they should continue to follow the advice of their specialist. The NHS is also now vaccinating the most at risk 5 to 11-year-olds.

Schools are responsible for recording absence in the register using the most appropriate code in line with the Education (Pupil Registration) (England) Regulations 2006 as amended. As usual, school leaders continue to have discretion to grant leaves of absence in exceptional circumstances. Where a pupil is not attending school for reasons related to COVID-19, we expect the school to offer them immediate access to remote education. Schools must also have regard to the expectations for remote education which are available here: https://get-help-with-remote-education.education.gov.uk/statutory-obligations.

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