School Attendance

Pupil attendance is vital. All of the research shows that children who attend well do better in school and we are determined that every child should get the opportunities they deserve. 

We want to reward good attendance.

Our rewards this school year are:

• The top two classes each week get £5 to spend on a class party at the end of term. This was a great incentive last year and really focused everyone on the importance of being in school every day. Ask your child how their class is doing this term!
• Children who achieve above 97% attendance each term will be invited for a small, in school, treat. School council will decide what this treat will be but it will be a simple ‘well done’ to those who come every day. We know that if a child is ill there is not much they can do, so this will reset each term to give everyone a chance over the school year.

We have a daily attendance routine and we really appreciate your help in making it work efficiently. Please contact school as soon as you know that your child will be absent for the day. Each day we do the following:

• At 9.15am each day we check the absence list to make sure we have reasons for any child missing school.
• At this point we then send a text message to remind a parent to ring school if we have not had a message. We also try to email at the same time.
• Following this, office staff are instructed to ring every person on the contact list to try and find the reason for absence.
• Under guidance published to schools (Keeping Children Safe in Education), we need to exhaust every avenue to find 'missing' children.
• If we are unable to make contact, our next step is a home visit by 2 members of staff and finally a phone call to the police.

New procedures are in place for maintaining good attendance in schools in this school year. Our detailed policy below will give you the full information about how absence is handled.