Reporting a pupil absence

You must let us know asap if your child is going to be absent from school. You should do this by phoning the school office between 8.30am and 9am. If no one is available, please leave a message. Alternatively you can text the school mobile or send a message to the Headteacher via Class Dojo.

When you report the absence you must tell us the reason for the absence - some detail is required in this - 'not well' is not enough detail for us to accurately record an absence on our school systems. If you do not provide a reason, your child will be given an unauthorised mark.

If your child is absent from school and we have not heard from you by 9.30am, we will phone you to find out why. If we are unable to reach you by phone, we will call your child's emergency contacts, or may carry out a home visit. This is in line with our safeguarding strategy.

Good attendance

Whilst we are realistic and understand that from time to time children do get ill, we aim to work with parents to ensure that every child's attendance is good or better.  This means they attend school for a minimum of 96% of sessions each school year. Going to school every day gives your child enormous benefits and advantages, ensuring that they have a routine, learn to read, make sustained progress in their learning, develop friendships and never miss out on educational or social experiences.

Missing school, whether by being late or taking unnecessary days off, creates learning and development gaps which need to be filled.  The best way you can support your child is to ensure they are in school and ready to learn every day. 

As a parent/carer you can ensure good attendance by:

• Setting an alarm and leaving the house in good time for the start of the day. Our children should be at the door at 8.30am ready to come in.

• Arranging medical appointments for outside of school time.

• Sending your child to school even if they are a bit ‘under the weather’, eg. have a cold or haven’t slept well.

• Sending medical evidence into school, if your child’s attendance is regularly affected by illness or if they are absent for more than 3 days in a row.

• Arranging holidays during the allocated school holiday periods - we urge parents to book holidays during the 13 weeks of annual school holidays which are available each year.  

• Talking to us and letting us know if there is anything affecting your child’s attendance. This includes issues that may not be related to illness such as friendship or home issues.

• Encouraging your child to form positive views about their education. They learn from you!

Definition of Regular Attendance from the Department for Education:

‘Working together to improve school attendance’ state "Where parents decide to have their child registered at school, they have an additional legal duty to ensure their child attends that school regularly.  This means their child must attend every day that the school is open, except in a small number of allowable circumstances such as being too ill to attend or being given permission for an absence in advance from the school."

When a child’s attendance drops below 92% they are known as persistently absent under the governmen’ts attendance definitions.  At this point the Education Welfare Service will begin monitoring and this means that you may in time face prosecution through the courts.  

New Attendance Regulations

You will know that if a child misses just one day of school, that is one day’s worth of education lost. If it’s more than one day, those losses will be cumulative and the effect on long-term prospects could not be more damaging. Prior to Covid, absenteeism had been on the decline, but since the lockdowns, it appears attitudes towards attendance have changed and we are now seeing a steep increase in absenteeism once again.

As a result, Ministers have now published guidance on managing school attendance that will become mandatory from September 2024. Here's what you need to know:

£80 fines and Improvement Notices

Absence fines charged to parents will rise from £60 to £80, or £160 if not paid within 21 days.  From Autumn term 2024, only two reduced fines can be issued to the same parent for the same child within a three-year rolling period. Any notice thereafter will automatically be charged at £160.  Parents will also receive "improvement notices", where they are informed that this is their last opportunity to engage with education and improve their child's attendance before a fine is issued.

National fine thresholds

From September 2024, schools are encouraged to issue a fine if a pupil misses 10 sessions (half days) of unauthorised absence in a rolling period of 10 school weeks. Schools no longer “have a blanket position of issuing or not issuing penalty notices”. The threshold can be met with “any combination of unauthorised absence”. For example, four sessions in term time plus six instances of arriving late. Sessions can cross over school holidays and even school years.

Long-Term Sickness to be Flagged with Local Authorities

Schools will have to give councils the name and address of sick pupils who they believe will miss 15 consecutive or cumulative days. Schools will also be “expected to inform a pupil’s social worker and/or youth offending team worker if there are unexplained absences from school”.

Mental Health  Awareness

All schools should now be particularly mindful of pupils absent from school due to mental or physical ill health or their special educational needs and/or disabilities and provide them with additional support. The guidance acknowledges “many children will experience normal but difficult emotions that make them nervous about attending school, such as worries about friendships, schoolwork, examinations or variable moods”. But it is “important to note that these pupils are still expected to attend school regularly”.

The school governor responsible for attendance is Janet Brown.

The following links may be useful:

Working together to improve school attendance - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)

Fines for parents for taking children out of school: What you need to know – The Education Hub (blog.gov.uk)