Attendance

Everyone in our school community recognises that good school attendance is vital for our children to thrive, have the best education possible and achieve their full potential.

Good attendance is 97% or above.  This has a positive impact on a child’s opportunities for progress and attainment. 90% or below is classed as ‘persistent absence’ and school attendance meetings will be convened to address this. 

It is very important that your child attends school every day unless they are too unwell to do so. Each day of absence can lead to gaps in learning which can impact on outcomes later on. We value support from our parents and carers with this, and will always work with you to address issues around attendance.

The Department for Education (DfE) has made key changes to attendance expectations which came into effect on 1^st September 2024. Our policies and procedures have been updated to reflect these changes. The key changes are:

• Change to the attendance codes
• There is no longer any option for schools to authorise, under any circumstances, term time holidays
• Penalty notices issued for attendance

Illness and appointments

We understand that there are times when your child is too unwell to attend school. If this is the case, please contact the school office by 0845 on 01980 670339 on each day of absence. If no notification is received by the time the registers are closed, the school office will follow up with a phone call.

If you are unsure whether to keep your child at home or not, useful information can be found at Is my child too ill for school? - NHS (www.nhs.uk)

Where possible, please try to schedule routine appointments, such as dentist or opticians, outside of the usual school day. We understand that sometimes children will need to attend emergency appointments, such as at hospital, and that is not always possible to choose a time, so please provide copies of relevant letters with the request for absence forms.
 

Leave of absence requests

Following the DfE guidance, leave of absence requests will not be granted for a family holiday.

We do recognise that there may be times when there are exceptional circumstances that means a child cannot attend school. Exceptional circumstances can include illness, urgent medical appointments, observations of religious events or attending a school interview.

If the request for leave of absence is not granted and the absence is still taken, it will be recorded as unauthorised. When a child has ten sessions – the equivalent of 5 school days – of unauthorised absence then parents or carers may be subject to a penalty notice.

Leave of absence requests for children from service families

Good attendance is vital for all our children and the information above applies to all. We do appreciate that there may be additional exceptional circumstances for children of service families at which time a request for term time absence might be made. Any such request will be considered on a case-by-case basis. Further information can be found here Term time absence for Service children - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)

Improving attendance

We will always work with parents and carers to approve attendance where this is an issue. We review pupil attendance each week in school and if a child’s attendance is falling below what we would expect, we will contact parents and carers to find out what support we can provide. Contact is made in the first instance via letter. When attendance falls below 90% a School Attendance Meeting may be called and we may seek advice from the Education Welfare Officer at the Local Authority.

Wiltshire Local Authority Information on Penalty Notices

The Local Authority (LA) has powers to issue Penalty Notices where the parent/carer is considered capable of but unwilling to secure an improvement in their child’s school attendance. Details can be found here: Attendance and behaviour - Wiltshire Council

Click here to view all our policies, including our Attendance Policy