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As a parent/carer you are responsible for ensuring your children receive a suitable full time education.

Regular attendance is not only a legal requirement but is essential for children and young people to maximise their educational opportunities.

Absence from school, even the occasional day, is proven to have a negative impact upon a child’s educational attainment, personal confidence and enjoyment at school.

The Education Support Service (ESS) has a legal responsibility to monitor school attendance on behalf of Dudley Borough Council.  If a school has a concern about a child's attendance they will discuss the issues with the ESS and may request the service considers legal intervention as a last resort.

It is important for you to contact your child's school if you are experiencing difficulties with their attendance, behaviour or accessing support for any additional needs.  The school will then work in partnership with you to try and resolve any difficulties you have and overcome any barriers there might be in securing good attendance and behaviour.

If your child's school have any concerns they will contact you and it is vital that you communicate well with the school and work together to resolve any issues.

Schools may offer support from the Early Help service who can aid you to improve your child's attendance.  We would encourage you to accept this offer of support.

You can use the MyDudley portal to contact ESS (the portal is also available to parents who live outside of the Dudley borough but whose child/ren attend a Dudley school).

It can be extremely hard for a pupil to catch up on missed work, regular absence can really disadvantage your child in life.  Children who miss one day each week from school, are missing out on 20% of their education.

Attendance during one school year Equates to days absent Which is approximately this many weeks absent Which means this number of lessons missed
95% 9 days 2 weeks 50 lessons
90% 19 days 4 weeks 100 lessons
85% 29 days 6 weeks 150 lessons
80% 38 days 8 weeks 200 lessons

You may also find the documents below helpful for further information on absence, attendance and enforcement:

Enforcement

If a parent/carer doesn't secure regular attendance of their child at the school at which they are registered the ESS have a number of powers to help ensure these children are properly educated, these can include fixed penalty fines, school attendance orders and sometimes prosecution.

Pay a school attendance fine

You can pay a school attendance fine through the payments estore.  Then scroll down to Welfare Penalty Notice.