Nottinghamshire Schools Portal

Attendance register codes

All schools, except those where all the pupils are boarders, must keep an attendance register in accordance with the The School Attendance (Pupil Registration) (England) Regulations 2024 .

The attendance register must be kept electronically to aid accuracy and reduce the burden of information sharing.

Attendance and Absence codes

Detailed guidance on the Attendance Codes is available in Working together to improve school attendance 2024 [PDF].

Below are some key points:

On each occasion the register is taken the appropriate national attendance and absence code must be entered for every pupil (of both compulsory and non-compulsory school age) whose name is listed in the admission register at the time (with the exception of a pupil who is a boarder).

All schools are expected to set out in their attendance policy the length of time the register will be open, after which a pupil will be marked as absent. This should be the same for every session and not be any longer than 30 minutes.

The codes enable schools to record and monitor attendance and absence in a consistent way and are used to collect statistics. The data helps schools, local authorities, and the government gain a greater understanding of the delivery of education and the level of, and reason for, absence.

New Attendance Register Codes

There are a number of new Codes in the 2024 regulations and guidance [Word]. These aim to:

• capture in more detail the reasons for a pupil’s absence and
• ensure the Code applied in the register for a pupil more closely match the legal defences for an absence from school.

Restrictions on the use of ‘B’ codes

The new DfE guidance has tightened up the circumstances in which the B Code can be applied for off-site education arranged by schools.  The requirements for using this code are set out within the definition of an Approved Educational Activity.

Approved Educational Activity

Schools have responsibilities for the safeguarding and welfare of pupils attending an approved educational activity.

A pupil can only be recorded as attending a place for an approved educational activity if:

• the place is somewhere other than the school, another school where the pupil is registered, or a place where educational provision has been arranged for the pupil by a local authority under section 19(1) of the Education Act 1996 or sections 42(2) or 61(1) of the Children and Families Act 2014;
• the activity is of an educational nature;
• the school has approved the pupil’s attendance at the place for the activity; and
• the activity is supervised by a person considered by the school to have the appropriate skills, training, experience and knowledge to ensure that the activity takes place safely and fulfils the educational purpose for which the pupil’s attendance has been approved.

As set out in the DfE’s guidance on ‘Providing Remote Education’. pupils who are absent from school and receiving remote education still need to be recorded as absent using the most appropriate absence code. Schools should keep a record of, and monitor pupil’s engagement with remote education, but this is not formally tracked in the attendance register.

Medical and Dental Appointments

Schools should encourage parents to make appointments out of school hours. Where this is not possible, they should get the school’s agreement in advance and the pupil should only be out of school for the minimum amount of time necessary for the appointment.

Pregnant pupils

Leave for maternity is treated like any other leave of absence in exceptional circumstances. Schools are expected to act reasonably and grant a sufficient period of leave from school, taking into consideration the specific facts and circumstances of each case. Ultimately, it is at the school’s discretion how much leave to grant.

Schools can’t ‘retrospectively’ remove pupils from registers.

Guidance is now more prescriptive about when pupils should and should not be removed from admissions registers.

It states schools cannot “retrospectively” delete a pupil’s name from the admission register or attendance register.

Where pupils have been located but have not returned to class, a “joint decision” is needed between schools and LAs, and a pupil can only be removed from a register if there are “no reasonable grounds” to believe the child will return, even with support or enforcement.

Leave of Absence in Term Time

Head teachers continue to have the discretion to approve a leave of absence in term time in exceptional circumstances.

A school cannot grant a leave of absence in term-time retrospectively.

When a school identifies that a pupil has met the threshold for unauthorised absences in term-time (5 days or 10 sessions over 10 school weeks), they must consider whether legal intervention through the use of a penalty notice is appropriate.