Attendance and Punctuality
Regular attendance at school is the key to a good education. It is very important that your child comes to school every day and on time unless illness prevents this. If your child is away for legitimate reasons, please ensure you follow this guidance:
Telephone or email the school immediately on the first day that your child is too ill to attend and follow it up with a letter upon your child’s return. If you can, please provide medical evidence such as: a doctor's letter, a copy of a prescription for medicine, or the prescribed medicine packaging.
Make any dentist/doctor/hospital appointment outside of school hours.
Do not keep your child away from school if there is an issue in school; contact the school to discuss the problem with a senior member of staff.
Do not keep your child away from school for unnecessary reasons, i.e. birthdays, holidays, relatives’ visits, shopping trips, your own ill health.
The school has to account for all non-attendance, whether authorised or unauthorised.
Authorised absence: when your child is ill, has a medical appointment or has to visit a prospective new school. Certain circumstances e.g. attending a funeral may also be authorised by the Executive Headteacher. However, all other absences from school are unauthorised.
If you know that your child is going to be absent you need to complete a leave of absence form available from the school office. This enables you to record the reasons for your child’s absence. In the vast majority of cases such absence will always be unauthorised. This may result in your referral to the Attendance Advisory Service. This service requires that all problems which would affect a pupil’s school attendance be dealt with promptly, to avoid legal action. Parents of children who have any unauthorised absence may be at risk of legal action. Parents of children who meet the criterion will be informed by letter.
The OFSTED expectation, which Governors fully support, is that all schools should achieve 95% or better attendance.
Please ensure that you are punctual at both the start and end of the day. Children miss valuable learning time if they are late to school and can become very distressed if there is no one to pick them up at the end of the day. If your child is late (arrives after 8.50am) please ensure they go to the office and sign in. The class register closes at 9.30am: any child who arrives after that time will be given an unauthorised absence mark for that session.
