Regular attendance is crucial to each pupil’s educational development. School will comply with the amended DFE regulations which state that “from 1 September 2013 leave of absence must be requested from and agreed by the Head Teacher in advance of any absence. Head Teachers may not grant any leave of absence unless there are exceptional circumstances.”
If your child is sick or away from school for any reason, please ring or call at school on the first day of absence. School will telephone parents if contact is not made.
If you need to take your child out of school during the day, it is very important that you:
- Let us know in advance and bring the dental or medical appointment card along.
- Collect your child from the School Office. Pupils cannot be allowed to meet you off school premises.
- Sign your child out of school and into school on his/her return.
Regular attendance at school is vital to help children achieve and get the best possible start in life. We want all our children to get a great education and the building blocks for a great education begin with children coming to school each and every day. If children miss school regularly, they miss out on learning the fundamental skills that will set them up for success in the later years. Attendance patterns are established early, a child missing days in the early years of school will often continue in later years.
At Grindon Infant school we monitor all children’s attendance and our goal is that all children meet the target of 95% or above. We have a ‘Traffic Light Initiative’ which is intended to raise pupil attendance levels. Each half term you will receive a letter containing details of your child’s attendance. If your child’s attendance is 95% or above, then you will receive a ‘green’ letter. If your child’s attendance is 90%-94%, then you will receive an ‘amber’ letter; this is to let you know that we are concerned about your child’s attendance and we will be looking to work in partnership with you to raise your child’s attendance back to a satisfactory level of 95% and above.
If your child’s attendance is below 94% then Attendance 100, our school improvement service, may contact you. This is an excellent service which many schools in Sunderland use to improve the attendance levels. Their main priority is to monitor attendance and punctuality, however they are also there to assist and support you with any issues which could negatively affect your child’s attendance.
As a school we work very hard to promote good attendance and we are aiming for 96.1% for overall attendance which is the same as the national average. We ask for your support so that we can ensure your child receives the very best start in life.
