We firmly believe that regular attendance at school is crucial in raising standards of education and ensuring that every child meets their full potential.  Missing out on lessons leaves children vulnerable to falling behind.  

We are committed to meeting our obligation with regards to school attendance through our whole school approach that values good school attendance, including:

• Promoting good attendance

• Ensuring every child has access to full time education

• Building and maintaining a strong relationship with families to enable targeted support to better school attendance

• Reducing absence, including persistent and severe absence

• Acting early to address patterns of absence

• Promoting the importance of arriving to school and lessons on time to support punctuality

We have introduced several initiatives to highlight the importance of attending school.  These are outlined below:

• The class with the highest weekly attendance will get an extra afternoon playtime on a Friday afternoon
• Every child who achieves 100% attendance for a term will enter into a prize draw to win a £10 Metro Centre voucher
• The profile of attendance will be raised through positive praise in celebration assemblies and on an awards display in school
• Mrs Irving and Mrs Dolan (Parent Governor) analyse the school attendance data on a half termly basis and identify children who have lower than 90% attendance.  The parents of these children will be invited into school to discuss this.  This is an opportunity to identify any issues or problems that may be preventing the child attending school.  Often the school will work alongside the Legal Intervention Team in this matter.

The following timescale will be followed to ensure that we know the whereabouts of every child as soon as possible

We are fully aware that children do become ill and often have appointments that are within the school day.  The purpose of these initiatives is not to punish these children but to avoid having children staying off school unnecessarily or to stay off for longer than is needed. 

Lateness also has a big impact on your child's education.  The school policy is that registers open at 8:55am and close at 9:30, this follows advice from the local authority.  Children who arrive in school after the register has closed will be marked as an unauthorised absence for that session.  Children who arrive late, but before the register is closed, will be marked as "late" but will still receive their mark.

Please read the guide below about the importance of attending school regularly and on time.