Contact and MPs discuss school attendance

2 mins read

Thursday 29 May 2025


Contact and Define Fine representatives with Claire Young MP and others at a school attendance roundtable in Westminster.


Contact has participated in a roundtable discussion on school attendance, hosted by Claire Young, the Liberal Democrat MP for Thornbury and Yate.

The event took place in Westminster last month. Other representatives from different educational charities and professional organisations also attended. Conversations focused on how attendance policies impact children with special educational needs and their families.

Topics discussed included:

  • The importance of supporting a child to attend school.
  • The need to stop issuing fixed-penalty fines to families whose children are not attending school due to their disability or additional needs.
  • The lack of support and special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) provision in education settings causing absence because of unmet needs.
  • The use of part-time timetables and exclusions as a way to avoid supporting children.

The government must reset its approach to attendance

Contact has long had concerns over the government’s drive for high attendance standards. This has created a system in which attendance figures are prized over a pupil’s wellbeing and access to education. We know this approach unfairly impacts disabled children and those with physical and mental health conditions, for whom high attendance is often an unrealistic aim.

Contact, in partnership with Define Fine, is calling on the Government to reset its approach to attendance by:

1. Pursing a cultural change in both the narrative and approaches to attendance

2. Creating an Attendance Code of Practice. This should consolidate all government guidance in one place, and there must be consequences for schools who disregard the code.

3. Establishing robust accountability mechanisms for all education settings who fail to comply with their statutory duties under the Working Together to Improve School Attendance Guidance and the Equality Act 2010.

4. Investing in the SEN System. Missing education should not be a result of needs not being met in school or lack of appropriate education setting.

You can read more about Contact and Define fine’s attendance asks in our policy paper.