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<p>All children are entitled to an efficient full-time education which is suitable
to their age, ability, aptitude and any special educational needs they may have.</p><p>Local
authorities have a duty to make arrangements to establish the identities of children
in their area who are of compulsory school age but are not registered pupils at a
school and are not receiving suitable education otherwise than at a school.</p><p>If
it appears to the local authority that a child of compulsory school age is not receiving
suitable education, either by regular attendance at school or otherwise, then they
have the power to begin procedures for issuing a school attendance order. The order
will name a school at which the parent is required to register their child.</p><p>Where
a pupil is not regularly attending school, local authorities and schools have a range
of measures they can put in place to support school attendance.</p><p>In the 2020/21
academic year, local authorities made three requests for my right hon. Friend, the
Secretary of State for Education, to issue a direction to comply with a school attendance
order for academy schools. None of these requests resulted in a direction to admit.
The time taken to issue a decision on these cases ranged from 4 days to 63 days, owing
to the complexity of the individual cases.</p>
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