Punctuality, Attendance and Reporting Absence

Our school is committed to promoting the welfare of your child through regular school attendance. We know that every day lost to education can have a serious impact on your child’s attainment and overall progress in school. We are therefore fully committed to promoting school attendance by providing an environment and ethos where children feel safe and can build positive relationships with their peers.

We expect that in return, parents ensure that their child attends school regularly and punctually and that holidays in term time are avoided. It is also important that your child is punctual; consistent lateness is detrimental to their progress and disrupts the start of the day for the class.

Our school attendance figure remains above national average, with classes often attending 100% for the whole week. If for whatever reason your child's attendance is a concern school will contact you to see if we can help. Attendance is monitored weekly so that we can spots where there is really good attendance, as well as noting areas of concern.

If your child is ill, then the school office should be notified at the earliest opportunity. Planned absence is always unauthorised unless in rare and exceptional circumstances.

If your child needs to attend a medical appointment during the day please collect and return your child from the office in the main reception area of the school. There is a signing in and out record book and you will be issued with an authorised absence pass.

Punctuality

Thank you for making sure that your child is in school and ready to learn by 8.45 a.m. each day. If a child arrives after the register is taken this is marked as a 'late' and these are recorded on the child's attendance record. Lateness is a great difficulty for your child who needs to be in the classroom at the very start of the day on time so that he or she is included in the welcome and introduction of the day, starter activities and early teaching. A child who misses the prompt start may become flustered and will not have the settled start to the day necessary for full engagement in learning. Thank you for making sure that your child is in the yard for the early bell at 8.40 a.m. (KS2 and Y1/2) to make their way into class. F2/Reception children may go into classrooms at 8.35 a.m. to settle into the day. We ask that parents leave classrooms by 8.45 a.m. unless an arrangement has been made with the class teacher.

Thank you for making arrangements for your child to be collected promptly at the end of the school day. In order to ensure the safety of your child it is important that your child waits on the school premises to be collected or leaves the premises at 3.15 p.m. promptly if walking home alone. There are no staff members on duty in the grounds at the end of the school day. We welcome parents to supervise their own children or charges if you wish to make use of our wonderful grounds and equipment after school but do remind you that you are responsible for your own children and charges at this time. We expect all children to follow all the safety rules regarding play and play equipment AT ALL TIMES, INCLUDING after school. N.B. Climbing ON TOP OF the jungle gyms / train is not allowed.The school gates are locked at 5.45 p.m. or dusk whichever is earlier.

Reporting your child's absence

If your child is sick and is unable to attend school please report this to us by leaving a message on our school answerphone. Thank you for stating the reason for absence and in the case of illness, the symptoms. We are called upon by public health to report large numbers of absences resulting from a similar illness. In order to safeguard our children the school will try to contact the parents of a child who is not registered if we have not received a notification of absence.

Authorised and Unauthorised Absence is all recorded on a child's attendance records. These records are electronically accessed and monitored by the Local Authority in accordance with the Education Regulations 2006

10 Inspection of registers

(1) The admission register and the attendance register of every school shall be available for inspection during school hours by--

(c) in the case of a school maintained by a local education authority, any officer of

the local education authority authorised for that purpose.

11 Extracts from registers

The persons authorised by regulation 10 to inspect the admission register and attendance register of any school shall be permitted to make extracts from those registers for the purposes of their functions under the Education Acts.

Planned Absence - Parents are not entitled to remove children from school for holidays or occasional days - leave of absence must be applied for. All such leave is unauthorised. HM Government and school policy is that planned absence is UNAUTHORISED unless there are rare exceptional family circumstances - the decision lies with the HT. See file below. All planned absence must be applied for on the correct form. Please note that general school absence figures are reported to the Governing Body. The Local Authority checks and keeps track of attendance figures remotely and regularly. Please use this link to ensure you are aware of holiday dates for the coming year:

https://www.sheffield.gov.uk/education/schools/holidays.html

School has to take a statutory 5 days during the year, these are advertised as soon as they are available on the school calendar.

The GB also endorse the importance of raising awareness with parents about the level of attendance of a child, working with the MAST LA team to notify parents when attendance is falling. The request for Leave of Absence can only be submitted in the half-term before the planned absence. It must be made at least 20 days in advance of the planned absence.

Please note the Government has raised the level marking a persistent absentee to 90%. Should your child fall below this level you will be notified in writing by school. Please also note that the level of attendance consider to be good is 96% or more. Thank you for reading Attendance Matters in the files below this page.