Attendance and Punctuality

To help children achieve their very best in school, it is important that they are good attenders and also punctual. Teachers welcome pupils into the classroom at 8.45 and registers are taken at 8.50 every day.  Parents play a pivotal role in supporting children to arrive on time every day, so children are calm, focused and ready to learn.

We have to keep a record of absences by law. If your child is absent for any reason, we request that you phone the school on the morning of his/her absence and inform us. If you do not inform us of your child’s absence, we will give a first day of absence response call, asking why your child is absent.

In September 2013 the Education (Pupil Registration) (England) (Amendment) Regulations 2013 came into force. These regulations make it clear that Headteachers should not grant approval for any leave of absence during term-time, including holidays, unless there are exceptional circumstances. These regulations also state that holidays cannot be authorised retrospectively. 

Any requests should be on an official school absence request form and handed in to the school office for consideration at least 10 days prior to any holiday/leave arrangements being made.

You may be issued with a Penalty Notice should leave be taken which is not authorised. If unpaid this could lead to prosecution under section 444(1) of The Education Act 1996.

Please note that it is the school’s policy to deem all holiday requests as being unauthorised. (Only in exceptional circumstances will a holiday request be authorised.) Pupils whose attendance is consistently below 90% are classed as persistent absentees, as defined by the Government guidelines, regardless of whether or not absence is authorised, and may be subject to involvement from Educational Welfare.

Attendance and Punctuality procedures

We will use the following procedure to keep you as informed as possible about attendance  and punctuality concerns.

Step 1

If your child’s attendance drops to between 94-91%, we will contact each parent making you aware of this and send you a parental responsibility letter.

Step 2

If your child’s attendance drops further to 90%, a meeting will be arranged with both parents. During this

meeting, a parent/pupil target agreement will be completed, and a penalty warning notice will be issued to both parents. The penalty warning notice will give a set number of days for attendance to improve within.

Step 3

If your child’s attendance does not improve during the monitoring days, a penalty of up to £120 per parent, per child will be issued from the local authority.

If attendance does improve, you return to step 1.