Cooling-off period – attendance

Students have a cooling-off period when they can cancel their contract for educational services with you. The duration of this varies across the sector. It is an arrangement separate from student finance.

Our guidance is to confirm attendance for students only when they've become liable for fees. This will be after the cooling-off period has ended.

If students leave during the cooling-off period, you must withdraw them with the real-time effective date because attendance has not been confirmed.

Example

You correctly confirmed the student’s registration on 17 September, once they enrolled on their course. The course starts on 24 September.

You have a 2-week cooling-off period. As the student does not become liable for fees until the end of this period, you should not submit an attendance confirmation yet.

The cooling-off period will end on 8 October. The student drops out of the course within the cooling-off period on 4 October.

You should submit a Withdrawal CoC with the real-time effective date of 4 October.

Positive attendance submitted in error – student withdrawn

You've submitted a positive attendance confirmation in error. The student has not attended in that liability period and will not be returning to study.

You should submit a Withdrawal CoC with the effective date before the first term course start date.

Example 1

You correctly confirmed the student’s registration on 17 September, once they enrolled on their course. The course starts on 24 September.

You confirm the student’s attendance for the first liability period with an A code on 1 October. This is in error. The student has not attended and will not start the course.

You should submit a Withdrawal CoC with the effective date of 23 September.

Example 2

You correctly confirmed positive registration and attendance for the first term.

For the second term, you confirm the student’s attendance with an A code on 7 January. This is in error. The student is not continuing with the course.

You should submit a Withdrawal CoC. The effective date should be the student’s last date of attendance (before 7 January).

Negative attendance submitted in error

If you have submitted a negative attendance confirmation in error, you can change this. The Attendance Code dropdown will still be visible. Select a positive code and then select Save or Submit.