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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
National
Anna Fazackerley

UK academies ‘very sorry’ for policies saying pupils must attend when unwell

Children sitting in a classroom
Headteachers say they are under pressure from the government to turn around what has become a national crisis in school attendance. Photograph: Ben Birchall/PA

Parents have forced three ­academies to abandon hardline attendance policies in which pupils were told to come in even when unwell and were banned from missing school for period pains without further medical information.

The headteacher of Neale-Wade academy in the market town of March, Cambridgeshire, wrote to parents on Thursday apologising and retracting a previous letter that said that absence for period pain would be marked as “unauthorised” – meaning parents could be liable for fines or prosecution – unless the school had “medical information relating” to this.

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