Attendance
We are absolutely committed to building positive relationships with the children so they feel safe and respect others and themselves. This extends to parents and carers so that where there is a need to address aspects of school attendance, everyone is respectful and understands the value of good attendance on a range of aspects relating to children’s development and preparation for life in the wider world.
Children being in school makes a difference to their education and life chances. Working with parents; ensuring children are happy and receive the highest quality education, which excites them and ensures they achieve, and the highest levels of Care which ensures they feel safe and valued is the best way to achieve this.
Our attendance is consistently above the national average. However, this is not our measure of success and we will continue to do everything we can to support and improve children’s attendance where necessary.
If your child is absent from school due to illness, please ring school on the first day of absence to inform us of the reason. We ask parents to try to avoid appointments during the school day whenever possible.
If your child does need to attend an appointment, please provide us with details in writing. For any other absences, please complete a Leave of Absence Request Form, which can be downloaded below or collected from the school office.
How Our School Monitors Attendance
Registers are recorded twice each day – AM session at 09.00 and PM session – according to Key Stage. Absences and lateness are noted and followed up with ‘first-day calls’ to parents/carers by the school administrator. Absences causing attendance to fall below 90% will be followed-up by letter informing parents of the current level of attendance and offering support to improve the situation.
Where persistent absence or absence of concern is a factor, parents will be invited to a meeting to identify the causes and agree a plan to support improvement in attendance.
Term time Holidays
Please note that absences will only be approved in exceptional circumstances and in accordance with a strict formula.
Research has shown that there is a clear link between levels of attendance and levels of achievement and that, in short, the more time a pupil misses school, the lower their levels of achievement are likely to be.
After illness, the taking of holidays in term time is the single largest cause of absence from schools in England…(?) Taking holidays in term time has a disruptive impact upon pupils’ learning, creating gaps in knowledge which are a barrier to current and future learning. It may also suggest to some pupils that their education is not an important priority.
If you wish to request permission for a term time holiday, please complete and return a Leave of Absence Form at least four weeks before the start of the proposed holiday.
Please be aware that holidays taken without permission may lead to fixed penalty fines of up to £120 per parent for each pupil being issued by the Local Authority.
Our leave of absence request and our attendance policy can be found here.
