Attendance Matters

Both the school and parents have a legal duty with regard to student attendance. Working together and communication between the school and parents is vital. Student absence from school for any reason (illness, appointments, leave for exceptional circumstances) will cause your child to miss lessons and it will affect your child’s education so we need to encourage open and honest communication between parents and the school. Poor attendance and punctuality will be monitored, and we will seek advice and support from our Education Social Worker (ESW) where necessary. We will liaise with the child and the parent/carer in an effort to support and hopefully improve the child’s attendance. However, in some cases, when all else fails, the school may resort to fixed penalty fines or even prosecution. Under Section 7 of the Education Act 1996, ‘The parent/guardian is responsible for ensuring their child receives a full time education.’

Support with Attendance

If you have any concerns or problems with regard to your child’s attendance, please do not hesitate to contact the school office on 01202 528811. We have the benefit of our Pastoral Support Worker as well as our Attendance Officer in the school office who are always available to support you and your child and discuss arising attendance matters.  

Absence from school

Illness - If your child is ill, please telephone the school office on 01202 528811 to report your child’s absence. It can be challenging sometimes for parents to determine when their child is too ill to attend school. This is why we recommend you look at the useful tool in the link below, which offers advice to help you make that decision. Don’t forget, children can come to school if they are on antibiotics, if they are well enough, you just need to complete a request form for us to administer medication in school, which you will find in the School Office and on our school website.

https://www.what0-18.nhs.uk/parentscarers/worried-your-child-unwell/child-unwell-ok-go-nurseryschool

Arrival late to School - The bell for the start of the day goes at 8.40am and the gates will then be locked. If you arrive late to school for any reason, you will need to go to the main office. We closely monitor lateness as it has a detrimental impact on children’s education.

Appointments - We request that, whenever possible, you make appointments after school or during the holidays. We do appreciate that sometimes this is not possible. If you know in advance that your child will be absent during school hours for a Doctor, Dentist or Hospital Appointment, please inform the school of the appointment in writing and provide us with a copy of the appointment letter.

Absence Requests - In line with the Government guidelines, Headteachers are not permitted to authorise any absence from school (including holidays), unless the reasons are exceptional, e.g. a family bereavement. If you need to request an exceptional absence during term time, please write a letter to Mrs Woodward explaining the reason for the request with 10 days’ notice, where possible.

Penalty Notices - Attendance penalty notices will be issued in line with the national framework (updated from August 2024). 

They can be issued for irregular attendance - where a child has unauthorised absences of 10 sessions or more in any 10-week period. Sessions refer to each half a school day. These 10 sessions could be made up of term time leave (i.e. unauthorised family holiday), unauthorised late marks, or other unauthorised absences.

The new penalty notice regulations are:

• Each parent will be issued a separate penalty notice, for each child concerned.

• The fine amount will be £160 per parent, per child paid within 28 days, or it will be reduced to £80 per parent, per child if paid within 21 days.

• This will be considered your first offence.

• The next time an offence occurs, within 3 years of the date the first penalty notice is issued, the fine amount will be £160 per parent, per child paid within 28 days, with no reduction.

• The third time an offence occurs this will be presented to Magistrate’s court with no penalty notice issued.

Term time leave does not just include holidays. Where a child is absent and it is believed by the school that they are absent due to term time leave, rather than illness, schools will be expected to carry out a home visit and see the child on or before the 3^rd school day of absence.

The Local Authority have written a letter to explain more about the changes with regards to penalty notices and what it means for parents, you can find their letter below.

You will find our attendance policy in Key Information > Policies.

The attendance figures displayed on our homepage are updated half termly; you will find more detailed attendance updates and news below.

Attendance for Academic Year 2025/26

End of Autumn Term 2

At the end of the Autumn Term our whole school attendance was 96.77%. We are very pleased that this is above target, and it is higher than it was at this point last academic year. We did have a lot of illness over the last 2 weeks of term, and noticed that there were some unauthorised absences due to day trips and holidays. Such events must take place at weekends and over the 13 weeks of school holidays. Please remember that holidays in term time can result in a penalty notice, and you must write to me with any requests, as set out in our attendance policy. We hope that as a whole school, we will be able to maintain our target over the Spring Term. Here is the attendance breakdown for each year group;