We encourage children to come to school through attendance awards. We give certificates to children with 100% attendance at the end of the school year.
Should your children not be able to attend school when they are ill, you need to ring the office on the first day of their absence. If you do not, we have to phone you so that we can be sure you’re your child is safe. This takes us a lot of time, therefore we really appreciate it when parents ring us to let us know why their child is away. Our office is open to take phone calls from 8am every day.
When your child returns to school we need you to send them with a signed note letting us know why they were away, even if you have already phoned us.
If you need to collect your child during the day for an appointment, for example a medical appointment or a music exam, please send your child to school with a note that morning for the class teacher. Please remember when collecting your child it may take us up to 5 minutes to collect them from their class.
Mrs. Beresford-King is our welfare assistant, one of her roles is to monitor pupil attendance. She helps children and families ensure that their attendance is good or excellent as indicated in the table below.
Attendance level |
Number of days child misses |
Monitoring and support |
97% to 100% |
Child is absent for fewer than 5.5 days a year |
Excellent attendance |
95% to 97% |
Child is absent for between 9.5 and 5.5 days |
Good attendance |
90% to 95% |
Child is absent for between 9.5 and 19 days |
Attendance causing concern Class teacher monitors attendance with support of welfare assistant
|
Less than 90% |
Child is absent for more than 19 days a year. |
Poor attendance If attendance continues to fall to below 90% the matter will be reported to the welfare assistant or the head or deputy headteacher in their absence, who -
|
Leave of absence for pupils in exceptional circumstances
Please note that all of our information regarding requests for leave of absence was updated for September 2018 when we updated our Attendance and Exceptional Leave of Absence policy in line with national and local authority advice following the Supreme Court ruling in relation to Platt V Isle of Wight case on 6.4.17. Our Attendance and Exceptional Leave of Absence policy is reviewed every September by the leadership team and governing body in line with any national or local advise and legislation.
Attendance and the law
The local authority have produced this useful leaflet to help clarify the legal responsibility that parents have in relation to sending children to school.