ATTENDANCE POLICY
INTRODUCTION
Regular attendance at school is essential to promote the education of all pupils. The School’s ethos demonstrates that children feel that their presence in school is important, that they are missed when they are absent or late. The School will take appropriate action when necessary in order to promote the aims of the policy.
AIMS
- To maximise attendance of all children.
- To provide an environment which encourages regular attendance and makes attendance and punctuality a priority for all those associated at the school.
- To monitor and support children whose attendance is a cause for concern and work in partnership with parents and carers to resolve any difficulty.
- To analyse attendance data regularly to inform future policy and practice.
- To work closely and make full use of the support from the wider community including the Education Welfare Service and multi-agency teams.
ROLES AND RESPONSIBLITIES
The following people have key responsibilities in the pursuit of high levels of attendanceand punctuality :
- Governors
- To set and monitor progress towards annual targets for attendance.
- To evaluate the effectiveness of the Attendance Policy.
- Headteacher
- To ensure that effective systems are in place to accurately reflect individual pupil and group and whole school attendance patterns.
- To monitor individual pupil, group and whole school attendance and punctuality.
- To work in partnership with key agencies if attendance and / or punctuality is an issue.
- To provide Governors with information to enable them to evaluate the success of policy and practice.
- To write to parents/carers regarding any concerns about their child’s attendance.
- To arrange meetings with parents/carers to discuss support and set targets for those experiencing attendance difficulties.
- Class Teacher
- To provide an accurate record of the attendance of each child in their class.
- To record the reasons for absence given to them on the appropriate recording sheet.
- To respond promptly to any issue raised in the weekly analysis of registers by Office Staff.
- To organise work to be sent home for children in their class who are expected to be absent for an extended period through sickness.
- Office Staff
- To prepare, manage and co-ordinate the use of the SIMS Attendance Manager System.
- To monitor and track attendance patterns for all children and prepare relevant attendance reports when necessary.
- To contact parents/carers on the first day of their child’s absence to establish the reason.
- To ensure that a satisfactory reason for every absence has been established for each child at the end of each week.
- To make a judgement in conjunction with the Headteacher whether an absence is authorised or unauthorised.
- Education Welfare Officer
- To enforce the law regarding school attendance.
- To support the whole school response to attendance through regular meetings and monitoring individual children’s attendance.
ADMINISTRATION
- The School uses Attendance Manager provided by SIMS to store and monitor it’s legal responsibilities in relationship to attendance. This system consists of specialised software and OMR sheets.
- Registers are a vital legal document and teachers are required by their contractual duties to take an attendance register at the beginning of both the morning and afternoon sessions. Registers are returned to the School Office after the closure of the registration period.
- Registers must be completed carefully and accurately, as they provide a record of a pupil’s attendance. Failure to compete a register accurately leaves the school vulnerable to complaint from parents or carers and constitutes a risk if an emergency evacuation has to take place.
ABSENCE
Lateness
- Pupils arriving after the register has been closed at 9.10 am, will be considered as late.
- Pupils arriving after 9.10 must report to the School Office so that their attendance can be recorded.
- Pupils arriving after 9.30 am will be officially absent for the morning session. This will be considered an un-authorised absence unless asatisfactory reason is given, for example a doctors appointment.
- Action to address lateness will be taken in line with the school’s strategy to improve punctuality.
Illness
- Parents/carers are asked to contact the school on the first day of absence to provide the reason for the absence and where possible on each subsequent day of absence. Parents/carers should provide a written explanation on their child’s return to school.
- Where Office Staff are not made aware of the reason for a child’s absence they will, wherever possible, contact parents/carers by telephone on the first day of absence.
- If any member of staff is concerned about a reason for absence, the Deputy Headteacher or Headteacher should be informed.
Medical or Dental Appointments
- Absence from school due to a medical or dental appointment will be considered as an authorised absence. Parents/carers are requested to provide written confirmation of these appointments.
- Parents/carers are encouraged to make all medical appointments out of school hours.
Holidays During Term Time
Holidays during term time are discouraged and where possible holidays should be taken during the school holiday periods.
The school may consider approving a request for pupils provided the following conditions are met:
- The child’s attendance maintains 94% and above throughout the school year.
- The child’s attendance history for previous years has attained 94%.
- The period of absence does not include any internal or external examinations.
- That no more than 10 days holiday has been requested in one academic year.
- There are exceptional reasons as to why a holiday cannot be taken in normal holiday time.
If the holiday absence is not authorised because the child’s attendance falls below 90% and the holiday is taken any way, the case will be referred to the Education Welfare Service who may issue a Penalty Notice for £100 (or £50 if paid within 28 days) to each parent for each child taken out of school.
Applications to take a holiday or an occasional special day during term time will be considered on an individual basis and should be applied for using the holiday application form obtained from the school office.
Other Absence
Other absence from school will be considered on an individual basis and a decision will be made to authorise or un-authorise the absence.
REPORTING TO PARENTS AND CARERS
All absences both authorised, unauthorised absence and lateness will be reported to the parent/carer at the end of the academic year within their child’s report.
In order to give parents/carers a benchmark to their child’s attendance to other children in the school and nationally the following grades will be used :
100% | Excellent |
98% - 99.9% | Very Good |
94% - 97.9% | Good |
90% - 93.9% | Satisfactory |
Under 90% | Unsatisfactory |
REWARDS
- Children who achieve 100% attendance are presented with a certificate and sticker at the end of each half term.
- Children who achieve 100% attendance at the end of the year are presented with an attendance prize.
- Good and improved attendance is rewarded in a tangible way with, for example, positive comments, certificates and stickers.
ATTENDANCE CODES
The following codes will be used to indicate the reason for absence :
L - Late (between 9.10 and 9.30 or after 9.30 if authorised)
@ - Late (after 9.30 – unauthorised absence)
M - Medical – hospital admission, dental, optician, hospital, doctors.
C - Other authorised absence – general illness, bereavement, family
reasons.
H - Authorised holiday absence
O - Unauthorised holiday absence.
MONITORING AND EVALUATION
- Attendance data will be collected monthly to establish patterns of irregular attendance. This will include children with : incomplete weeks; Monday and Friday absences; lateness; periods of extended absence; periods of un-authorised ; and all children with attendance below 85%. This data will be discussed with the EWO as part of the regular monthly meetings.
- The Headteacher and EWO will discuss the impact of the School’s Attendance Policy and the strategies used to promote good attendance annually and the Headteacher will recommend an attendance target to the Governors.
- The Governors will set an annual target of attendance and unauthorised absence and review this annually at its first meeting.