Attendance
Regular school attendance is essential as every school day is important. Every day lost can have a serious impact on your child’s attainment and overall progress in school. We expect children to attend school unless they are too unwell to do so. All absence must be reported to the school office by 9:30am to ensure the correct register code.
Please consult term dates before planning family holidays. A request for an absence to be authorised will only be granted in exceptional circumstances, and holidays are not generally considered to be an exceptional reason. Parents taking their children out of school without authorisation may be subject to a local authority penalty notice. See school attendance policy for further details.
Children should attend school on time. Registration is at 8:50am for the Juniors and 8:45am for the Infants. If children are late, they need to sign in at the school office. If you need to collect your children for any reason during the school day you need to sign them out at the school office.
Medical appointments, where possible, should be organised out of school hours. Where this is not possible, parents will need to complete the Absence Request Form, available from the school office, stating the reason for absence, the time of leaving and expected return.
We work closely with the Local Authority to monitor attendance. An Inclusion Officer (IO) visits the school each term to monitor attendance, particularly where it is below 90%. We will also contact them when there are concerns regarding attendance or lateness. Our Attendance Lead will contact families where lateness or absence is becoming an issue. We are keen to work with you to improve attendance.
We aim to keep you informed about your child's attendance and termly send home attendance certificates with accompanying letters to help you understand the codes and percentages. Weekly, in our newsletter, we publish the attendance of each class. We also incentivise attendance with various awards which individual students and classes can earn throughout the year.
Lateness - Every Minute Counts
We believe that ‘Every Minute Counts! When a child arrives late at school, they miss teacher instructions, interventions and lesson time; and their learning begins to suffer. Children may also feel embarrassed at having to enter the classroom late. The table below shows how frequent lateness can add up to a considerable amount of learning being lost. This can seriously disadvantage children and disrupt the learning of others. Please help your children to be punctual.
Minutes Late vs Learning days lost per year:
5 minutes = 3 days
10 minutes = 6.5 days
15 minutes = 10 days
20 minutes = 13 days
30 minutes = 19 days
Missed Days = Missed Opportunities
We continually focus on the importance of attendance and punctuality to ensure that your child has the best possible start in life. Attendance has a direct link to attainment; there is clear evidence that poor attendance has a very negative impact on children’s learning and progress at school. If a child is not in school regularly, they are not fully accessing the curriculum and learning opportunities available to them. Children are required to attend school for 190 days each year. There are 175 days for holidays and other activities. We expect attendance rates to be 95% and above.
Changes to Penalty fees for unauthorised absences from 19th August 2024
Attendance and absence letter to parents - October 2024