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School attendance

Fixed penalty notice for unauthorised absence

A fixed penalty notice is an alternative to prosecution in the magistrate's court. It gives you the opportunity to pay a fine for committing an offence, instead of being taken to court and prosecuted.

Norfolk County Council issues fixed penalty notices for unauthorised absence from school on behalf of headteachers. If you have questions about a fixed penalty notice you have received, you should contact your child's school.

We issue fixed penalty notices following:

When we will issue a fixed penalty notice

We issue fixed penalty notices for unauthorised absence when a child has:

  • Missed school to go on holiday during term-time, and the absence was not authorised by the headteacher
  • Arrived at school after registration for that session has closed, and their absence has been recorded with a 'U'
  • Regularly missed school without authorisation, and our attendance team have agreed that issuing a fixed penalty notice is an appropriate early intervention tool to improve the child's attendance

We can only issue a fixed penalty notice if the child has at least 9 sessions of unauthorised absence within a six-week school period (60 sessions). 9 sessions is equivalent to 4.5 school days.

Repeat offences

If you have already had a fixed penalty notice for unauthorised absence in the same academic year, we will take this into consideration. We may prosecute you in the magistrate's court instead of issuing another fixed penalty notice.

Who will get a fixed penalty notice?

The Council will issue a fixed penalty notice to each of the child's parents.

Under the Education Act 1996, a parent is:

  • A biological parent of the child — even if they do not have parental responsibility for the child or live with the child
  • Any adult who is not a biological parent but has parental responsibility for the child. This includes adoptive parents, step-parents, and carers.
  • Someone the child lives with who looks after the child

Receiving a fixed penalty notice

We send fixed penalty notices by first class post. We judge them as being received two days after they are sent.

If you claim that you have not received a penalty notice issued to you and your claim is credible, we will:

  • Resend the original notice, and
  • Allow time for you to pay the original fine of £60

Paying the fine

The fine is £60 for each parent or carer. It rises to £120 each if you do not pay within 21 days.

If you do not pay within 28 days, we will prosecute you for your child's absence from school.

You can pay by debit or credit card. The penalty notice will include details of other payment options.

You must pay the fine in full — we cannot arrange for you to pay in instalments. This is because we must follow the legal timeline for issuing fixed penalty notices.

Challenging a fixed penalty notice

Only a headteacher can authorise absence from school.

If there are exceptional reasons for your child's absence which you have not made the school aware of, you should contact the headteacher.

The headteacher may reconsider authorising your child's absence based on this new information. They are not required to do this if you did not request authorisation for the absence in advance.

If the headteacher maintains that the absence was unauthorised, the fixed penalty notice will still apply.

If your appeal to the headteacher is unsuccessful, you can ask for your case to be heard in the magistrate's court. If the court finds your guilty, you will get a criminal conviction, and the fine you have to pay may increase.

Withdrawing a fixed penalty notice

We will only withdraw a fixed penalty notice if:

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