Regular attendance at School is vital to ensure children achieve and get the best possible start in life. We want all of 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.
Attendance at Grindon Infant School is managed by ‘A Star Attendance Solutions’ – a 4-stage monitoring process, which is intended to raise pupil attendance levels.
This is the 4-stage monitoring process that is being used to indicate the level of your child’s School attendance:
Stage 1 – Pupils who have an attendance of 93% and below. A letter will be sent our reminding parents/carers of the importance of good attendance.
Stage 2 – Pupils continue to have attendance of 93% or below and have made no improvement. A letter will be sent home with a parent survey requesting more information to be provided regarding the absences. It is also possible at this stage for parents to arrange to speak to School about any concerns they may have of their child’s School attendance and ask for additional support.
Stage 3 – Pupils continue to show little, or no improvement and attendance has not reached 93% or above. A letter will be sent home advising that the pupil is now on a 4-week monitoring period. During this period, 100% attendance is required unless medical evidence can be provided.
Stage 4 – Pupils who have not passed the 4-week monitoring period will now be considered for a referral to the Local Authority.
Our goal is for all pupils to meet a target of 97% – 100% attendance.
We ask for the co-operation of parents. You can help us by:
- Encouraging your child to attend school every day and punctually. Punctuality is extremely important; learning begins as soon as the children arrive at school. Did you know that being late 15 minutes every day is the same as missing 2 whole weeks of school over a full academic year? Being late doesn’t only affect your child; it disrupts other children in the class as well as the Teachers trying to teach a lesson. If children are late and miss the register, it may be recorded as an unauthorised absence. However, if you do think you are going to be late, please do not keep your child off School for the rest of the day; being late and in School is better than being absent and missing out.
- Making all medical appointments out of School hours to ensure teaching time is not missed. Only emergency appointments or hospital appointments that can’t be rearranged will be authorised and we will always ask you to show the appointment card, letter or text in order to authorise the absence. Your child should also only be out of School for the duration of the appointment and not a whole session or day.
- Telephoning the School Office on the first morning of absence, no later than 8:50am, to inform School of the reason for absence. If you do not contact the School Office and we can’t make contact with you then we may carry out a home visit.
- Informing us of any changes or circumstances at home which may affect your child. Any such information will, of course, be kept in the strictest confidence.
- Supporting your child and school by attending parent’s meetings and taking an interest in your child’s schoolwork.
- Ensuring your child does not have holidays in term time. 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.” The current law does not give any entitlement to Parents to take their child on leave during term time. Any application for leave must be in exceptional circumstances and the Head Teacher must be satisfied that the circumstances warrant the granting of leave. Holidays are very rarely an acceptable reason for a school absence and are unlikely to be treated as an exceptional circumstance. You must allow enough time for the Head Teacher to consider your request before leave is taken and you must be aware that the Head Teacher may refuse permission and Parents can be issued with a penalty notice or prosecuted for periods of unauthorised holidays.
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.
As a school we work very hard to promote good attendance and we are aiming for 96% 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.
