Attendance is the entry in the school record that families think about last and can do least about afterwards. Subject grades have another term ahead of them and teacher comments can still be built up, but attendance once recorded cannot be changed. Here is how it works.

Recorded under four headings

Attendance is recorded as days absent, latenesses, early leavings and missed lessons. The last of these refers to not taking part in a lesson without permission. Most attention goes to absence, but lateness and early leaving are each their own heading and the annual count stays on the record.

Each heading is then divided by reason into illness, unexcused and other. So it is not "three days absent" but, say, "two days illness, one day unexcused" — the character of it is recorded alongside the number. That distinction carries real weight.

Paperwork is what separates illness from unexcused

This is the crux. Even where a child genuinely was ill, failing to submit the required documents within the set period can result in it being recorded as unexcused. With the documents in place, the same day is recorded as illness. What decides the entry is not whether the child was actually unwell but whether the procedure was followed.

Schools set the deadline and the range of acceptable documents in their own regulations, so it is worth reading the guidance issued at the start of the year. When a child falls ill, the first thing for a parent to deal with is the absence form and the deadline for evidence.

Why "unexcused" reads heavily

What used to be called "truancy" is now recorded as unexcused. The wording is softer; the weight it carries when read is not. Illness is understood as a circumstance outside anyone's control, whereas unexcused reads as a fact about not following the school's procedures.

That is also how universities look at it. The question is less how many days were missed than whether the record supports a judgement about diligence and observance of rules. Which is why unexcused entries stand out even when the numbers are small.

Some absences count as attendance

There are cases where a pupil is not in school yet nothing is counted as absence: family bereavements and similar events, off-site learning approved by the head teacher, and enforced non-attendance for notifiable infectious diseases. Each of these, though, assumes a procedure — an application in advance and a report afterwards.

Particular care is needed where approved off-site learning is used for a family trip. Schools set the number of days available in a year and the deadline for applying, and an application made after the deadline may not be accepted. Applying after returning is generally not accepted.

Do three latenesses make an absence

It is a story that circulates among pupils, but it is not true. Lateness accumulates as lateness and absence as absence. There is no rule converting a count of latenesses into days of absence.

That does not make lateness harmless. Once unexcused latenesses reach double figures they create an impression on their own. A record with no absences but repeated latenesses is telling the same story by other means.

How it is actually used in admissions

It depends on the route. Selection based mainly on subject grades often does not use attendance separately. Where applications are assessed on the documents as a whole, it is used as evidence about keeping to the rules of a shared setting. The structure of that assessment is set out in what the comprehensive school record route actually looks at.

Some universities state in their admissions guidance that unexcused absences above a threshold carry a deduction or restrict eligibility. So neither "attendance hardly matters" nor "a few days will ruin everything" is accurate. Reading the admissions guidance of the specific university is the only reliable method.

In summary — the entry that cannot be undone

The distinguishing feature of attendance is that it cannot be made up afterwards. So managing it is a matter of procedure rather than diligence: see a doctor when ill, collect the document, submit it within the deadline; apply in advance when something is coming up. Those two habits alone keep most entries under illness or other. For which entries in the school record reach universities and which do not, see this article.