Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether her Department has sought legal advice on whether school attendance awards comply with section 149 of the Equality Act.

The Department does not have a national policy on how schools use reward systems to incentivise better attendance, and it is for schools to decide whether they choose to use schemes such as school attendance awards. Schools have duties under the Equality Act 2010, including under section 149, to have due regard to the need to eliminate conduct that is prohibited by the Equality Act 2010, advance equality of opportunity, and foster good relations between persons who share a relevant protected characteristic and persons who do not share it. Those duties on schools apply to any schemes relating to incentivising attendance.