How do we record and review a reduced timetable?

Start with a written, parent-signed plan

Record it in a written plan signed by parents, mark missed sessions as authorised absence, notify your local authority, and set regular review dates aimed at a full-time return (DfE attendance guidance, 2024). A reduced (part-time) timetable is lawful only in exceptional circumstances and only as a temporary, agreed step. The plan should name the agreed hours, the reason, the support being put in place, and a proposed end date for the full-time return. Get the parent the pupil normally lives with to sign it, and keep a dated copy.

It must never be used to manage behaviour, and it does not reduce any pupil's right to a full-time education. Every child of compulsory school age is entitled to efficient full-time education suited to their age, ability and any special educational needs, so frame the plan as how you are working back towards that, not as a settled arrangement.

Record it correctly on the register, and tell the council

This is where schools get caught. Sessions the pupil misses under the agreed timetable are recorded as authorised absence (leave of absence the school has authorised) on the attendance register, not as the pupil being present full-time. Then notify your local authority of the arrangement. A pupil on a reduced timetable is at risk of missing education, and the council keeps these arrangements under review under its children missing education duties.

A reduced timetable never means a reduced statutory duty. For a pupil with an EHC plan, the provision named in Section F must still be delivered. For a child on a child protection or child in need plan, or one who is looked-after, agree it only in exceptional circumstances and only with the social worker or the Virtual School.

Review it on a short cycle

Set dated reviews from the start, and hold them with the pupil and their parents so the timetable stays in place for the shortest time necessary. Each review should ask one question: can we add hours back? As a rule of thumb, keep the arrangement to around six weeks and treat anything longer as a flag, not a norm. If it is drifting with no route back to full-time, it risks being treated as an unlawful exclusion.

What to have on file before the first review:

• the signed plan, with agreed hours and a proposed end date;
• the register showing authorised absence for the missed sessions;
• your dated notification to the local authority;
• for an EHCP pupil, a note of how Section F provision is still being met.

This page is general information, not clinical or legal advice.

This page is general information, not clinical or legal advice.