Unauthorised Absence
On the brink of losing her job, a single mother battles an education system that fines and threatens her while she fights to access statutory support for her autistic daughter.
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Jo ClaytonWriterStoryteller for Shakespeare's Globe and Great Ormond Street Hospital
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Natalie LaurenProducerFractured Frame (CINEQUEST), STI: Sexually Transmitted Introductions, Bubbles, Grief part 001, 12 (feature, Amazon Prime)
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Georgia ParrisDirectorMari (BFI London Film Festival), Tom Jones (ITV, PBS)
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Cathy TysonCastBAFTA Winner and Golden Globe Nominee!
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Isin ErayComposerhttps://www.isineraycomposer.com
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Caroline BartonArt DepartmentBridgerton, Downton Abbey, I Daniel Blake
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Project Type:Short Script, Treatment
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Number of Pages:10
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Language:English
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First-time Screenwriter:No
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Student Project:No
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IMDb "Script to Screen" Awards, Bath Film Festival
October 1, 2025
Finalist -
Bournemouth International Film Festival
October 1, 2025
Finalist -
Slick Films Main Fund
September 1, 2025
Shortlist -
Outstanding Screenplays
September 1, 2025
Semifinalist -
Director's Cut InternationalVienna
December 1, 2025
Finalist -
Manchester Film Festival (BIFA & BAFTA Qualifying)Manchester
March 28, 2026
Semi-Finalist, top 2% of 950+ submissions
A storyteller and mum from South London. For over 20 years she’s worked in hundreds of schools, nurseries and community settings with children, teachers, parents, and members of the public. A former Practitioner-in-Residence at Shakespeare’s Globe and Storyteller for Great Ormond Street Hospital, Jo has also written, performed and directed for venues around the world: including 2 solo shows at the Royal Festival Hall.
In 2018 she won a Jerwood/Arvon mentorship to complete her novel and, this year, was chosen for the Royal Court Theatre’s New Writers’ Scheme. This script is a semi-autobiographical testament to her own, deeply personal, experience and begins her campaign to change current absence laws and raise awareness of the broken SEND system in the UK.
The Children's Commissioner reports that 1 in 5 children are "permanently absent" from school; that is 1.5 million children in England alone. An ever-growing number of these children, when they're able to access an assessment, are recognised as having dyslexia, dyspraxia, ADHD and autism, with no infrastructure to support them or their parents. The government’s response has been to increase fines and prosecutions for “Unauthorised Absence”.
The knock-on effect is huge numbers of parents in an impossible situation: caring for severely unwell children, fighting for assessments and support, while unable to work and forced to home educate or care full-time.
Unauthorised Absence shows the emotional, social, and financial impact of the current UK school attendance policies on a single mother and her undiagnosed autistic daughter in a typical urban Primary School. Constructed from the testimonies of hundreds of parents and my personal experience, it sheds light on the experiences of thousands of families facing unbearable pressure, every day, up and down the UK.
Through Anna's eyes, we see her fight to protect her daughter and the conflict with the policies that miss Thea's cries for help. It's a fast pace script, constructed with fragments, to illustrate the mounting pressure Anna faces which, when it hits boiling point, ends in disastrous circumstances.
The film, as well as winning a number of accolades, has the support of over 50 of the UK's leading and senior professionals across the Education landscape: Psychologists, Paediatrics, Educators, Lawyers, Entrepreneurs, Campaigners, Charities - even an MP.
Demonstrating the hunger for this vast, underserved community to have their voices heard: our script has 4000 followers across social media, and we raised just over £14 000 in community crowdfunding. This short film fund would give us the gap that we need to go into production.
