Attendance

Regular attendance is essential to ensure uninterrupted progress and to enable children to reach their potential.

Good attendance is important because ….

  • Your child needs to be in school to be able to learn and achieve
  • Lessons are taught in a sequence and it can be difficult to catch up if you miss a lesson
  • For children to have relationships with others and to form lasting friendships.
  • For a child’s confidence to attempt new work and to work alongside others

Please remember if your child is late it counts as part of their attendance record. 

Our safeguarding team closely monitor attendance and support children to ensure that they are attending regularly. If you need support in ensuring your child attends school, please do not hesitate to contact a member of the safeguarding team.

Academy target = 96% attendance

What is good attendance?

Your non-attendance is authorised if:

Your child is too ill and we receive a note or an appointment card from a Doctor or Healthcare professional.

They have a medical appointment that cannot be arranged outside of school hours (please bring your appointment card to school)

There is an exceptional reason and you have received permission from the school in advance

If your child is absent from the academy please inform the academy by telephoning the office before 9.00am on the first day of absence.

What happens if my child’s attendance is not good?

Attendance records are monitored daily, the school will call home to establish the reason for the absence.

If your child is not attending school without a good reason you will be invited to discuss the problem with the school and we would work with you to resolve any issues you may be experiencing.

Who can help me if I am having problems getting my child to school?

  • Your child’s class teacher
  • Miss Clixby – Attendance and Welfare Officer and Deputy Safeguarding Lead
  • Mrs Hartmann – Head of Academy and Designated Safeguarding Lead
  • Mrs Hamby – Safeguarding Team Member

Term time leave of absence

From September 2013 the law changed and now states that parents do not have the right to take their child out of school for holidays in term time unless there are exceptional circumstances. 

We ask parents to recognise that pupil absence during term time can seriously affect a pupils learning. Parents are therefore strongly urged to avoid booking family holidays during term time. By law parents have to apply for permission in advance from the school. If your request is not covered by exceptional circumstances and you take your children out of school unauthorised we are required to inform the Local Authority who may then issue a Penalty Notice fine of £60, per child, per adult per week to be paid within 21 days, if no payment is received the Penalty Notice will increase to £120 to be paid to the Local Authority within 28 days.

Please note we do not receive any money from sanctions and they are never used as a punishment, only as a means of enforcing attendance. 

If a child has a planned absence, parents/carers must make the request in writing. The Head will
consider whether the absence falls under exceptional circumstances or not before authorising the
absence. If no planned absence form is completed, the absence will automatically be unauthorised.

If the Academy does not authorise the absence it will always notify the Education Welfare Service.

Remember it is the law that all children must be at school from their 5th birthday

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