Here at Whinstone Primary School, we believe that in order to facilitate teaching and learning, to enhance a child’s overall experience of school and to develop good habits to help them in future life, good attendance is essential. Students cannot achieve their full potential if they do not attend regularly.
The minimum level of expected attendance is 98%. To achieve this, your child’s absence must be kept to an absolute minimum. Even with 98%, 15 learning hours are lost – so it is essential all children are in school every day.
We understand that barriers to attendance are complex, and that some pupils find it harder than others to attend school; we will continue to prioritise cultivating a safe and supportive environment at school, as well as strong and trusting relationships with you and the children. We take a whole-school approach to securing good attendance.
Supporting us to support you
Regular school attendance is required by law and parents are responsible for making sure that their school age children attend school full time. This means that if a child does not attend regularly, you as a parent may be found guilty of an offence and can be prosecuted by the local authority.
‘Regularly’ is defined as every day the school is open, unless the absence has been previously approved by school or if the child is unfit to learn in any capacity throughout the day. These circumstances of authorisation are very rare.
We are here to support you with your statutory responsibility of ensuring your child’s regular attendance. Where possible, please can you:
- Ensure your child(ren) attend school every day on time and with the correct resources for the day.
- Maintain channels of communication with school to inform us in advance of any medical appointment, unavoidably scheduled during the school day. Return your child to school immediately after any appointment.
- Take holidays in designated school holiday time – there are 13 weeks of the year to take holidays; your child must not be taken out of school for a holiday.
- Inform school promptly of any matters which might affect your child’s attendance.
- Attend necessary meetings in school to discuss attendance. Barriers to attendance are always much quicker to resolve when we can discuss these together at the earliest opportunity, with the shared goal of getting your child(ren) back into school.
- Ensure your child attends school when they have a minor ailment, e.g. cough/sore throat/headache/sniffle. We ask for your support in them being resilient, in the same way that we would be resilient with getting to work.
We will contact you if we are concerned about your child’s attendance and ask that you contact us at your earliest opportunity if you too have any concerns.
- If there is a pattern of absence that we or you notice, such as regular absence on a particular day, it is best for a discussion to take place to explore strategies we can all do to remove barriers that prevent your child from attending.
- If there has been any anxiety or worry about attending school for any reason, it is important that we can discuss this to put a plan in place to ensure sustained attendance.
- Home visits – as part of our support, we may undertake a home visit, this can occur even if the absence has been communicated with school. Home visits will also take place for all students whose consecutive days of absence have exceeded 10 days as part of our safeguarding duties.
Punctuality
Good attendance also includes punctuality. Parents/carers have a responsibility to ensure their child arrives at school on time. The school day begins at 8:45am and students must arrive by this time so that they are fully prepared for lessons. The school gates are open from 08:35 with classroom doors opening at 8:45. The exterior school gates are locked at 8:55 and if your child arrives after this time they must enter through the main school reception area. This will mean they will have a late mark.
If a student arrives at school more than 30 minutes after their official start time and without a valid reason, they receive a U code which is a late mark identified as an unauthorised absence.
The impact of those few minutes lateness can be seen in the table.
| Minutes lost each day | Days lost per school year |
| 5 minutes | 3 days |
| 10 minutes | 6.5 days |
| 15 minutes | 10 days |
| 20 minutes | 13 days |
Rewards
As a school we celebrate good attendance.
Helpful Information
Reporting an absence
If your child is unfit to learn, it is your responsibility to inform school by 8:30am on every day of an absence. You can either call 01642 750318 or use Arbor to report the reasons for absence.
The option to leave a message will be available if the phone line is unavailable. Absences will only be authorised in exceptional circumstances. Whilst we require your support with informing us of the reason for your child’s absence, this does not automatically mean that the absence is authorised.
Leave of Absences
Parents/carers should be aware that any absence during term time significantly disrupts a child’s learning. Current legislation specifies that Head Teachers may not grant any leave of absence to students during term time unless they are exceptional circumstances. If you do decide to remove your child from education for a holiday, a Leave of Absence form must be completed, which can be collected from our main Reception at least two weeks prior to the first date of expected absence.
Appointments during the school day
Medical appointments – While we appreciate that certain appointments cannot be changed, we would urge you, whenever possible, to ensure medical appointments are made outside of school hours. A medical appointment will still impact your child’s attendance and time in school – even if it is authorised (upon receipt of evidence of the appointment) your child’s percentage of attendance will still go down.
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