Nottinghamshire Schools Portal

Notice to improve attendance

A Notice to Improve attendance [Word] is a final opportunity for a parent/carer to engage in support and improve attendance before a penalty notice is issued. If the national threshold has been met and support is appropriate but offers of support have not been engaged with by the parent or have not worked, a Notice to Improve should usually be sent to give parents a final chance to engage in support.

A Notice to Improve does not need to be issued in cases where support is not appropriate and an authorised officer can choose not to use one in any case, including cases where support is appropriate, but they do not expect a Notice to Improve would have any behavioural impact (e.g. because the parent has already received one for a similar offence).

Where a Notice to Improve is used, it should be issued in line with processes set out in Nottinghamshire’s Code of Conduct.

The Notice to Improve is expected to include:

• Details of the pupil’s attendance record and details of the offences.
• The benefits of regular attendance and parents’ duty under section 7 of the Education Act 1996.
• Details of the support provided so far.
• Opportunities for further support and the option to access previously provided support that was not engaged with.
• A clear warning that a penalty notice may be issued or prosecution considered if attendance improvement is not secured within the improvement period.
• A clear timeframe for the improvement period of between 3 and 6 weeks.
• Details of what sufficient improvement within that timeframe will look like.
• The grounds on which a penalty notice may be issued before the end of the improvement period.

What sufficient improvement looks like should be decided on an individual case-by-case basis taking the individual family’s circumstances into account.

For some families, no further unauthorised absences will be appropriate, for others some absence may be tolerable if considerable improvement is seen.

Details of what sufficient improvement for each case should be made clear in the Notice to Improve.

Where it is clear that improvement is not being made, it may be appropriate to request or issue a penalty notice before the improvement period has ended. For example, a Notice to Improve stated there should be no further unauthorised absences in a 6-week period but the pupil is absent for unauthorised reasons in the first week.

Parents/Carers should be informed before a penalty notice is issued if it is before the end of the improvement period.