School Attendance Support Before Legal Action Procedure

Use this procedure where the school is a maintained or academy school in England and is considering a penalty notice or other attendance legal intervention. The support options and the decision must reflect the individual case and the local services available to [school name].

Purpose and scope

Before deciding whether legal action should proceed, identify suitable attendance support available from the school and, where necessary, from other services and agencies in the area. Assess whether each available option is appropriate to the individual pupil and family.

For this procedure, support means any activity intended to improve the pupil’s attendance. Issuing a penalty notice or bringing a prosecution is not attendance support.

Procedure

1. Identify available support

Identify the suitable attendance support currently available within the school. Where necessary, identify support available from other services and agencies in [local area].

Describe the support options that are relevant to the pupil and family, including the provider and how the support could be accessed. Do not treat a penalty notice or prosecution as a support option.

2. Assess suitability for the individual case

Assess whether each identified support option is appropriate to the individual pupil and family. Record the reasons for treating an option as suitable, unsuitable, or requiring further information.

The assessment should take account of the circumstances recorded for [pupil name] and the support that is available through the school or other local services.

3. Consider support already provided or available now

For each support option assessed as appropriate, establish whether it has previously been provided to the pupil or family. Where it has not been provided, consider whether it could be provided now instead of taking legal action.

Record the support previously provided or offered, the relevant service or agency, the outcome or engagement recorded at [school name], and any support that could now be provided instead of legal action.

4. Decide whether legal action should proceed

Use the completed assessment of available and appropriate support, including whether that support has been provided previously or could be provided now, when deciding whether a penalty notice or other attendance legal intervention should proceed.

Record the decision and the reasons for proceeding with, delaying, or avoiding legal action. The record should identify the support considered and explain how the individual case assessment informed the decision.

Case record

Retain the individual case assessment and the record of support identified, provided, offered, or considered for [pupil name] in accordance with [school record arrangements].

Where local support is unavailable, unsuitable, or cannot be provided instead of legal action, record that conclusion and the reasons before the legal intervention decision is finalised.