Ten unauthorised sessions in ten school weeks

That is the point at which a family is at risk of a fine. It is also, and much more usefully, a deadline: everything the DfE expects a school to do about attendance happens before it. This page is about that part.

What the threshold is, exactly

Ten sessions, ten school weeks, unauthorised only

The National Framework threshold is ten sessions of unauthorised absence in a rolling ten school week period. A session is half a day, so ten sessions is five school days. They do not have to be in a row.

Two things about it are easy to miss. The window rolls, so it is not a term or a half term: a family can cross the line, drop back under it, and cross again. And a week with no sessions in it, such as a holiday, is not one of the ten weeks, so a break does not dilute the count.

Authorised absence does not count towards it. Both kinds of absence reduce a child's attendance figure by exactly the same amount, but only unauthorised absence counts here.

Support comes first, and that is the guidance, not an opinion

The statutory guidance expects a school and its local authority to work together, and to offer support before formal action. It also expects a school to be able to show what was offered. Enforcement is the last stage of a sequence, not an alternative to it.

The exception in the framework is absence for a term-time holiday, where a penalty notice can be the first response. That is worth knowing precisely because it is the only place the sequence does not apply.

What happens if a notice is issued

A first penalty notice is issued to the parent at a rate set nationally, with a reduction for prompt payment. A second notice for the same child within three years is charged at the full rate. A third cannot be issued in that period: the case has to be considered for prosecution instead.

The current amounts are on the statutory guidance. The amounts are not quoted here on purpose. They are set nationally and have changed before, and a figure a school cannot rely on is worse than no figure at all.

Nobody wants to issue a penalty notice. Knowing who is three sessions away is how you avoid one.

What is expected, and in what order

These six stages are the DfE's own, in its order and its words. A school asked at an inspection what it does about attendance is asked against these, so the second column is whatadsum gives you for each. What it will not do has a section of its own further down.

Expect

What is expected. A culture that treats every session as worth attending, with a clear ambition the whole school knows.

What adsum does. Every screen measures against the target your school sets, not a national one we picked. A school aiming at 96.5% sees its own line on every chart.

Monitor

What is expected. Attendance data used rigorously and often enough to act on, rather than reported after the fact.

What adsum does. Import or sync your data and you get a watch list. Who is drifting below your target, and who is recovering. Who falls into persistent absence, which is missing 10% or more of possible sessions, next time the figures move. Every list shows how many times home has been contacted, and how long ago.

Listen and understand

What is expected. Finding out what is actually in the way for that child and that family, before assuming.

What adsum does. The patterns that say it is not the family. A single weekday standing clear across every year group is usually transport or the timetable. A whole-school lean towards afternoon absence points at lunchtime. Both are worth checking before you ring anyone.

Facilitate support

What is expected. Offering help early, and voluntarily, while it can still change the outcome.

What adsum does. Who is two or three sessions from the threshold, with the exact ten weeks shown, recounted every time your data updates. You can record the call from the list itself: who you spoke to, how you reached them, and what was agreed. Plus a confidential list for your Education Welfare Officer.

Formalise support

What is expected. Putting the support in writing, with a date to review it: an attendance contract, or a parenting contract.

What adsum does. Record which of these six stages a child is at, with the date it changed and who decided, and print the chronology: every contact with home and every stage change in one dated list. So a review meeting, a targeting support meeting or a referral starts from an agreed record rather than somebody’s memory. Safeguarding concerns still belong in your safeguarding system, and a note can say it is recorded there.

Enforce

What is expected. A last resort, once support has been offered and has not worked.

What adsum does. A count that holds up, and a record of what was tried. Every figure follows the DfE's own method and states how it was reached, because a figure quoted in a formal process is the first thing challenged. So is the question of what support was offered first.

A school that offered help and wrote it down has an answer. Remembering it is not the same thing.

Writing down what you did, and showing it

The guidance expects a school to be able to show what support was offered before any formal step. That is a record, and it is the part most often kept in somebody's inbox, a shared spreadsheet, or their head.

A note takes about fifteen seconds

Recorded against the child, from whichever list you were looking at. Who you spoke to, how you reached them, whether you actually got through, and what was agreed. The date and your name are filled in for you.

It is not only for the ten-week count. Any child adsumflags can carry a record: persistent absence, severe absence, lateness, or simply drifting below the target your school set.

The chronology is the thing you take into the meeting

One list per child, in date order, with every contact and every attendance figure together. Share it or print it. It is what an Education Welfare Officer asks for, and what a targeting support meeting runs on. It is also what shows a support-first sequence was actually followed.

Every watch list shows who has been missed

Each child on a list carries how many times home has been contacted, and how long ago. That one number is the difference between a list you read and a list you work. It is also how a senior leader tells at a glance whether anybody has fallen through.

Attendance only, and safeguarding stays where it belongs

These notes are for attendance support and nothing else. Your school already records safeguarding concerns in its own system. A note here can say it has been recorded there, by name, so nobody has to guess which record is the real one.

The box you type into says so. It also reminds you of something easy to forget: a parent can ask to see anything written about their child, and about themselves. Write it to be read by them.

Practices that work, and most cost nothing

Seven things schools do that keep families away from the threshold. Most of them involve no software at all, which is the honest shape of it. adsum finds the child; the school changes the outcome.

Tell the family the count before anybody else does

A parent at six sessions can still act. A parent who first hears the number at ten cannot, and arrives at the meeting defending themselves. Sharing the running total early turns a threshold into a shared problem rather than an ambush.

Ring home the same morning, every time

Not a text on the third day. A call on the morning itself reaches a family while the day can still be saved. It works because it is a question rather than a warning.

Check whether it is the school before you decide it is the family

If Friday afternoon stands clear across every year group, the answer is in the building. Timetable, transport, the last lesson, or a club that finishes early. That conversation is with staff, not with parents.

Ask about the morning, not about the absence

Breakfast, the bus, a younger sibling's nursery run, a night shift, a broken washing machine, anxiety at the gate. None of those come out of a question about attendance, and all of them have something a school can offer.

Name one person the family can ring back

A family that has to explain itself again to whoever answers stops ringing. One name, one number, and somebody who already knows the child is the difference between a support plan and a paper trail.

Put the support in writing, with a review date

That is what an attendance contract is for, and it protects the family as much as the school. It says what was offered, what was agreed, and when both sides will look again. Signed support that was tried and did not work is also the record that shows enforcement was genuinely a last resort. This is the practice the chronology above exists to make easy.

Take the child's own report into the meeting

One page, in plain English, that a parent can read with the child in the room. It leads with whatever is going well, because a meeting that opens with a complaint is a meeting that ends early.

What this page will not help you do

Stay just under the line

Schools do ask whether there is a way to keep a family below ten sessions. This page does not answer that, and the reason is worth saying rather than leaving you to notice.

Nine unauthorised sessions is nine sessions a child was not taught. Advice that tidies the paperwork while the education is still missed argues against the point of measuring any of this. It would also ask a school to help a family around a duty the school is itself under. That is not a position to put an attendance lead in.

What is worth saying instead: a family that knows the count, and has been offered something real, has every reason not to reach ten. That is the whole argument of this page.

Replace your local authority's own code of conduct

Every local authority publishes its own code of conduct for penalty notices, and it is the document that governs what happens in your area. This page describes the national framework the codes sit under. Where the two differ, yours wins.

Where this comes from

The two government documents this page is built on, reviewed on 23 August 2026. Attendance policy moves, so check the live pages rather than take our word for it.

Want to know who is close, in your school?

adsum counts the rolling ten weeks for every pupil, out of the exports your MIS already produces. It shows you who is two or three sessions away, while there is still time to offer something. Ask us to set your school up on your own data.

Ask us to set your school up