Attendance

School Attendance Expectations and Procedures

Is my child too ill for school? – NHS

Regular school attendance is important.

Regular school attendance plays a vital role in children’s wellbeing and their education, ensuring that their current learning needs are being met but also building their future ability to learn.

Good attendance is essential for teaching and learning.

Pupils can not achieve their full potential if they do not regularly attend school.

Attendance KS2 Attainment Fact Sheet

Our aim is for children to reach their full potential and therefore good attendance is important.

We are committed to:

• Promoting and modelling high attendance and its benefits.
• Ensuring equality and fairness for all.
• Intervening early and working with other agencies to ensure the health and safety of our pupils. Building strong relationships with families to overcome barriers to attendance.
• Working collaboratively with other agencies.
• Ensuring parents follow the framework set in section 7 of the Education Act 1996, which states that the parent of every child of compulsory school age shall cause them to receive efficient full-time education suitable to their age, ability and aptitude, and to any SEND they may have, either by regular attendance at school or otherwise.

What is Authorised Absence?

• An absence for sickness for which the school has granted leave
• Medical or dental appointments which unavoidably fall during school time, for which the school has granted leave
• Religious or cultural observances for which the school has granted leave
• An absence due to a family emergency

What is Unauthorised Absence?

• Parents keeping children off school unnecessarily or without reason
• Absences which have never been properly explained
• Arrival at school after the register has closed
• Absence due to shopping, looking after other children or
• Absence due to birthdays
• Absence due to day trips and holidays in term-time which have not been agreed

What is Persistent absence (PA)?

• Missing 10% or more of schooling across the year for any reason.
• Attendance is less than 90%

Parents are expected to:

• Make sure their child attends every day and is on time.
• Contact the school to report their child’s absence before 8am on the day of the absence and each subsequent day of absence and advise when they are expected to return.
• Specify the reason for any absence, enabling the attendance officer to apply the correct absence code in the register.
• Provide the school with more than 1 emergency contact number for their child and a contactable email address.
• Ensure that, where possible, appointments for their child are made outside of the school day.
• Avoid taking planned absences during term time.
• Work in partnership with the academy to promote good attendance and punctuality habits.

What are Parental Absence Requests?

Parents will be required to request certain types of absence in advance. All requests for absence will be handled by the Headteacher – the decision to grant or refuse the request will be at the sole discretion of the Headteacher, taking the best interests of the pupil and the impact on the pupil’s education into account.

The school will only grant a pupil a leave of absence in exceptional circumstances (Please see below). In order to have requests for a leave of absence considered, the school will expect parents to contact the Headteacher in writing at least two weeks prior to the proposed start date of the leave of absence, providing the reason for the proposed absence and the dates during which the absence would be expected to occur.

The school will not grant leaves of absence for the purposes of family holidays.

Fixed Penalty Notices will be given for holidays that amount to 5 days of absence or more.

Leave of Absence Request Form

What are Exceptional Circumstances?

• Exceptional circumstances will include when a pupil is unable to attend because:
• There is a lack of access arrangements.
• Transport normally provided is not available and the school is not within walking distance.
• There is widespread disruption to travel.
• Part of the school premises is closed, and the pupil cannot be practicably accommodated.
• The whole school site has been closed unexpectedly.
• The pupil is in criminal justice detention.
• Public health guidance or law legislates that attendance is respectively not advised or prohibited.

Penalty notices and legal intervention

The school will allow sufficient time for attendance interventions and engagement strategies to improve pupils’ attendance; however, where engagement strategies to improve attendance have not had the desired effect after six weeks, the attendance officer will consider:

• Holding a formal meeting with parents – this could involve the Local Authority Attendance Improvement Team as appropriate
• Working with the LA to put a parenting contract or an education supervision order in place, where appropriate
• Engaging children’s social care where there are safeguarding concerns.

Where the above measures are not effective, a Notice to Improve in line with the LA’s code of conduct to provide a final opportunity for parents to engage and for attendance to improve. Where attendance still does not improve following a Notice to Improve a Penalty Notice can be issued.

The school will work with the LA in taking legal action, which can include prosecution as a last resort.

Where a pupil reaches the national threshold of 10 sessions of unauthorised absence in a rolling period of 10 school weeks, the school will consider whether a penalty notice is appropriate. Each case will be considered individually to determine whether a penalty notice or another tool or legal intervention should be used to improve attendance.

A fixed penalty notice will be issued in line with the LA’s code of conduct and the DfE’s ‘Working together to improve school attendance’ guidance.

Penalty notices for unauthorised absences will be charged at £160, reduced to £80 if paid within 21 days.

Parents will only get up to two fines for the same child in a three-year period. Once this limit has been reached, other action such as a parenting order or prosecution will be considered.

Where attendance still does not improve following a fixed penalty notice, the school will work with the LA to take forward attendance prosecution as a last resort.

Parents who are prosecuted and attend court because their child has not been attending school may be fined up to £2,500.

For further information, please see our Attendance Policy Attendance Policy

Please contact school if you would like to discuss your child’s attendance.