Attendance & Punctuality

The government expectation is that pupils will be present at school for at last 96% of the time. Being present in school means that children are able to access their full right to an education, the opportunity to thrive and to reach their full potential. 

Illness and Absence

Unfortunately, illness happens and we understand that there will be times your child has to miss school. Schools have guidelines set by the NHS regarding how long children need to stay off school with different illnesses. Please check this below, as we may not be able to authorise some absences, if the period of absence is longer than the period recommended. If your child is unwell and you feel they are too unwell to access school, please call the school office 01942 248129 and either speak to a member of our Admin Team, or leave a message on the school answer machine.

We have a duty of care to know where our pupils are during school hours, so do please call and inform us at the earliest opportunity. Please do not tell staff at the gates or in passing, as these messages sometimes do not end up with the correct people who oversee attendance and registers. 

Punctuality

Doors of the school open at 8:45am and school officially starts at 8:50am. This means that children are late if they arrive after this time. If they arrive after the gates have been shut, your child will need to enter school through the main entrance, where you will be asked to provide a reason for their lateness on the Inventry signing in system. If they arrive after 9:30am, they will receive an ‘unauthorised’ mark in the register for the morning session. Ten unauthorised absences can lead to the Local Authority issuing a Fixed Penalty Notice, which is currently £80 per child, per adult. It is vital that families get into a punctual routine as soon as possible in a child’s education, as every minute counts!

Communication with School

If we have not heard from you and your child is not in school when the registers close at 8:50am, you may receive a call from either our school admin team or our pastoral manager (Mrs Bish), who will ring to see where your child is and what reason they are absent. If we are unable to speak to you, we will leave a voicemail (but will not state your child's name for GDPR reasons) and may also send a message. Please respond to these messages. If we have not been able to speak to parents, a member of our team will then carry out a home visit to check on the welfare of your child.

Medical Appointments

We appreciate how challenging it is in this current climate to get an appointment at the GP or the dentist, so do understand that some medical appointments may be necessary during the school day. However, we ask that you avoid these, if at all possible, and where they are unavoidable, please only have your child absent for the minimum amount of time required for the appointment and please provide evidence of the appointment so that we can correctly record the absence in registers. 

Leave of Absence in Term Time

Your children attend school for 190 days out of 365. This leaves 175 days for holidays! Please book your family holidays during these 175 days of school holiday time. Leave of absence in term time cannot be authorised, unless there are exceptional circumstances (1-day wedding of parents, people in the armed forces). If you do take your child on a leave of absence during term time and they miss 5 days or more and are of statutory school age, you will receive a Fixed Penalty Notice from the Local Authority. This is currently £80 if paid within 21 days or £160 if paid within 28 days. This charge is per parent, per child.

If the Fixed Penalty Notice remains unpaid this could lead to prosecution in the Magistrates Court and if a second Penalty Notice is issued to the same parent, for the same pupil within 3 years of the first notice, the second notice is charged at a flat rate of £160 per parent per pupil, if paid within 28 days. A third penalty notice must not be issued within a 3 year period, therefore in cases where the threshold is met for a third or subsequent times, within those 3 years, a penalty notice cannot be issued and alternative action will be taken instead.  

The process for requesting a leave of absence is to complete a ‘Request for Absence’ form, which can be found below, or a paper copy can be requested from the office. This must be returned to school, ideally well in advance of the date of the leave of absence. We can then formally respond to your request, in writing. 

Many thanks for your support.