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Jurisdiction(s):
United Kingdom
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Key definition
School definition

What does School mean? In legal practice, “school” denotes an institution providing primary or secondary education to pupils, whether state-funded or independent, and includes special schools. The expression is used across education, public, employment, safeguarding and equality law in issues such as admissions, exclusions, SEND/ASN, governance, premises and duty of care. In England and Wales, statutory definitions are found chiefly in the Education Act 1996 and the Academies Act 2010, covering maintained schools (community, foundation, voluntary aided/controlled), academies and independent schools; pupil referral units, early years and further education institutions are distinct. In Scotland, the Education (Scotland) Act 1980 defines schools, including nursery, primary, secondary and...

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School Attendance Law in England: Compulsory Age, Education Otherwise than at School, Registers, Offences, Enforcement, and Truancy Sweeps under the Education Act 1996 and 2024 Pupil Registration Regulations

Practice notes
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‘Working together to improve School attendance’ is statutory guidance from the government that explains the considerations to which all schools, trusts, governing bodies and local authorities must have regard when striving to secure consistently high attendance across England. It clarifies that this guidance should be read alongside other documents, notably the statutory ‘Keeping children safe in education’...

Compulsory school age

Children who are of compulsory school age must receive an education, which does not have to take place in a school setting. When judging whether a child’s attendance is adequate, the first question is whether the child has reached compulsory school age.

  • when they reach five years old, if that birthday falls on a prescribed day; and
  • otherwise, from the beginning of the next prescribed day after their fifth birthday

The prescribed days for the commencement of compulsory school age are 31 August, 31 December and 31 March each year...

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Christopher McFarland
Christopher McFarland

Christopher is a Director within the Education and Public Law departments at Sinclairslaw. Starting with the firm as a trainee in 2013, Christopher has risen internally through the ranks to lead the Education Team in our Cardiff Office. He is the firm Legal Aid Supervisor for Education.Professional Expertise:Christopher specialises in all areas of Education and Public law. He has extensive experience with Special Educational Needs (SEN), Additional Learning Needs (ALN), Discrimination and Higher Education cases. Christopher has significant experience in pursuing complex judicial review cases at the High Court and was recently a key member of the firm’s team which brought landmark success in the case of R (Gardner) v Secretary of State for Health and ors [2022] EWHC 967 (Admin).As the Legal Aid supervisor for Education, Christopher oversees all of the firm’s Legal Aid cases alongside a busy and diverse private...

Nicholas Hancox
Nicholas Hancox

Nicholas qualified in 1977. He specialises in Education Law, Local Government Law and Highways Law and has been authoring and editing for LexisNexis since 2000....

Web page updated on 21/05/2026

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