1. Rationale
Local Context
1.1 The purpose of this local code of conduct is to ensure that penalty notices for school absence are issued in a manner that is fair and consistent across Manchester City Council. The code sets out the arrangements for administering penalty notices in Manchester City Council and must be adhered to by anyone issuing a penalty notice for school absence in this area. The code complies with relevant regulations and the Department for Education’s national framework for penalty notices as set out in the ‘Working together to improve school attendance’ guidance.
1.2 This code has been drawn up in consultation with the headteachers and governing bodies of state-funded school and the local police force.
The Manchester Inclusion Strategy
1.3 The Manchester Inclusion Strategy has been developed to help the Local Authority, early years’ settings, schools, post-16 providers and other services work in a more coherent way to support young people to attend their setting and/or to reduce the risk of exclusion. The strategy provides an outline of approaches, interventions, and services to support all Manchester settings, schools, and post-16 providers to ensure the needs of all young people are understood and addressed in order to support good attendance and prevent the use of exclusion wherever possible.
1.4 The offer is made of four identified strands of intervention:
• Strand 1 – Universal Provision and a whole school/education setting vision and ethos.
• Strand 2 – Early Identification of children presenting challenging and school refusing behaviours
• Strand 3 – Alternative Provision or Specialist Support fully embracing the individual needs of any young person who requires a different kind of support and/or setting.
• Strand 4 - Ensuring Best Practice in the Use of Exclusion with the aim of reducing the use of fixed term and permanent exclusion for incidents of persistent disruptive behaviour by ensuring that the root causes of such emerging behaviours are understood and appropriately addressed as early as possible through early intervention and innovative multi-agency planning.
1.5 Read the Manchester Inclusion Strategy.pdf