Attendance Policy 2025 - 2024
Why?
We know that good attendance:
- Secures the highest standards of safeguarding and welfare
- Means you child can achieve their best academically
- Means your child can make and maintain healthy friendships and develop their social and communication skills
- Ensures your child leaves primary school as a responsible, global citizen; with choices and opportunities when they leave school
- Children of Primary age are required by law to attend school.
How?
- You must provide a reason on the first day of absence why your child is not attending school. You can call school on 0121 - 675 - 2800 and speak to someone or leave a message
- If no contact is made, we will call you. If we can’t make contact with you via a phone call for more than 3 days, you will receive a home visit to ensure your child is safe and well and to offer you any support you may need.
- Once we make contact and gather enough information to understand your situation, an absence code will be decided on (see P12 of ‘School Attendance Guidance’ link below)
- If we can still not contact you, and we can not confirm your whereabouts through any additional channels or contacts, the LA ‘Child Missing in Education’ team is notified immediately. The CME team is also notified if a child is known to have moved out of the area so not attending, or if a parent enquiring about a school place states that their child is not currently attending a school.
Monitoring and responding to absence
- Attendance is monitored both daily and weekly by the Attendance Team. Where there is a clear pattern of absenteeism, where attendance is falling or where there are other attendance related concerns, your child’s name will be added to a watchlist and monitored further.
- If your child’s attendance continues to be of concern, we will make contact with you to discuss your circumstances and provide any advice or support you and your child might need to improve their attendance.
- These actions may include sending out concern letters, making home visits, arranging medical or family support or referring the child to the mentoring team. It may also involve the use of an Attendance Champion, who will work with you and your child on a regular basis to improve attendance.
- If there is still no improvement and/ or the appropriate threshold is met, a referral may be made to the LA’s Attendance and Prosecution Service.
Leave during term time
- Only the Principal can authorise leave during term time - and only in exceptional circumstances. This must be requested through a Request of Absence form which can be obtained from the front office
- Holidays during term time must be requested, too. This is so we know where children are, however, we will not authorise holiday during term time.
Incentives and Rewards
- The ethos of incentives and rewards is based on a collective responsibility and acknowledges the power of a communal effort.
- Children enjoy coming to school and benefitting from all of the outstanding aspects it has to offer: excellent teaching and learning, an exciting and innovative curriculum, to see friends and develop social skills, and lots of opportunities and experiences besides.
- Good attendance (97%) is rewarded at the individual, class and year group level; includes: Bronze (1 term), Silver (2 terms) and Gold (3 terms) certificates. There are half termly raffle prizes, vouchers for the most improved attendance and year group budgets for experiences of their choices at the end of the academic year.
- An ongoing, daily recognition of good levels of attendance are always effective at encouraging pupils to attend school daily, too.
Supportive Documents