Legislation and Administration

Legislation and Administration Policy

• Updated the name of this policy, added reference to the policy and procedure framework, and clarified that legislation and regulations apply to the whole site.
• Added a new dropdown that explains how legislation, regulations, and standards apply, and updated how the school complies with all legislation and regulations.
• Added information about managing non-compliance.

Student Attendance

• Clarified expectations of regular attendance, and noted exemptions that may be granted.
• Composite and secondary schools – replaced wording about "senior passes" and "lunch passes" with new default wording.

Attendance Procedures

• Divided this topic into procedures for recording and monitoring attendance, and for managing student absences.
• Updated wording about staff responsibilities for recording, monitoring, and following up attendance. Schools can also add information about appointing an attendance officer.

Group Activities, Specialist Teachers, Relievers and Itinerant Teachers, Illness, Reporting Unacceptable Levels of Absence, Sending Students Home/Early Release
(retired)

• These topics were removed from all sites. Information in these topics is now covered in Student Attendance and Attendance Procedures (see above).

Before and After School Supervision
(primary and composite)

• Added wording, legislation, and resources about primary duty of care for the safety of students before and after school.
• Schools that had the optional Out of School Care topic will get default wording about a before and after school care programme added to this topic instead. Schools can change this wording. We will no longer link to external information about care programmes as it has proven difficult for schools to keep these up to date.

Before and After School Supervision
(secondary)

• This is a new topic for secondary schools to cover primary duty of care.

Out of School Care
(retired)

• This topic was removed from all sites. Content has been moved into the Before and After School Supervision topic. Links to care programme documents will no longer be offered as it has proven difficult for schools to keep these up to date.

Records Retention

• Changed the topic title and clearly referenced the School Records Retention/Disposal Schedule.
• Strengthened the introduction and added a section to outline procedures for destroying and discharging records.
• Outlined the record types and provided examples. See the full Schedule for detailed guidance.

Student Records, Governance, Personnel, Finance, Property and Administration, Historical
(retired)

• These Records Retention subtopics were removed from all sites. Schools should refer to this information in the School Records Retention/Disposal Schedule.

School Year, Terms, and Holidays

• Strengthened this topic to reference the new Education (When State Schools Must Be Open) Regulations 2022 directly, and to include detail about specific types of closures.

Boarding House/Hostel Policies

• Updated the introduction to this policy and made minor tweaks to sample wording.