Local education authorities have an obligation to provide full-time education for Traveller children of compulsory school age during the time they are staying within the local authority. Although Traveller children should attend school on the same basis as all other children, the law recognises the special position of Traveller families. The law is designed to protect Traveller parents from unreasonable prosecution for the non-attendance of their children at school. It does not mean that part-time education for Traveller pupils is legally acceptable, nor does it relieve parents of their primary duty to ensure that their children are receiving suitable education when not at school.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Although the legislation has not changed since 2011, \u2018The School Attendance (Pupil Registration) (England) Regulations\u2019 2024 and the \u2018Working Together to Improve School Attendance\u2019 guidance use the new term \u2018mobile child\u2019 to \u2018describe any child of compulsory school age who has no fixed abode\u2019 under the eligibility criteria.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In response to feedback from Friends, Families and Travellers<\/a> and other organisations, the Department for Education has confirmed that no legal or policy changes have been made about who is covered by the T code.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Providing further information around how the definition of \u2018mobile child\u2019 should be applied, the Department for Education elaborated:<\/p>\n\n\n\n ‘<\/em>No fixed abode\u2019 means that someone either does not have a settled place where they can live full-time, or they have a place where they can live full-time but they spend substantial periods of time not living there’.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Essentially, according to the new guidance, a \u2018mobile child\u2019 is any pupil whose family travels as part of their trade or business, and:<\/p>\n\n\n\n Or<\/p>\n\n\n\n If the child is absent from school while travelling with their parent for work purposes, then the T code applies. This means that parents who previously used the T code to take their child out of school to travel for work will still be able to under the new guidance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Please see our T code One Minutes Guide for further information and support.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Our aim is to ensure that Traveller children attend school as regularly and as frequently as possible. The interest of the child needs to be balanced with a sensitive and sympathetic approach which recognises the lifestyle and cultural traditions of family life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Do you want to understand the barriers and improve the attendance of your Gypsy, Roma, Traveller & Showmen children?<\/p>\n\n\n\n We support schools to have an increased awareness of:<\/p>\n\n\n\n Contact us for more information<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Local education authorities have an obligation to provide full-time education for Traveller children of compulsory school age during the time they are staying within the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2471,"featured_media":0,"parent":8223,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"class_list":["post-8230","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-16 03:23:51","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.devon.gov.uk\/support-schools-settings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/8230","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.devon.gov.uk\/support-schools-settings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.devon.gov.uk\/support-schools-settings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.devon.gov.uk\/support-schools-settings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2471"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.devon.gov.uk\/support-schools-settings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8230"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.devon.gov.uk\/support-schools-settings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/8230\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":34219,"href":"https:\/\/www.devon.gov.uk\/support-schools-settings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/8230\/revisions\/34219"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.devon.gov.uk\/support-schools-settings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/8223"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.devon.gov.uk\/support-schools-settings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8230"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n
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Addressing Gypsy, Roma, Traveller & Showmen barriers to attendance \u2013 awareness training<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
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Resources<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
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