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“Promoting excellent attendance is the responsibility of the whole school community”

“Excellent attendance is vital in ensuring all children can be the best that they can be”

Rationale

Low attendance has a direct relationship with the attainment of individuals and groups of students and leaves pupils at a disadvantage both socially and educationally. Attendance impacts on the standards achieved by the school. Parents of registered pupils have a legal duty under the Education Act 1996 (section 444) to ensure that a child of compulsory school age attend school regularly. If a child “fails to attend regularly” her parent is guilty of an offence. Persistent and/or excessive lateness also constitutes as an offence and legal precedence has been set to treat such lateness as failure to attend regularly.

AIMS

• To improve the overall attendance of pupils at school

• To improve pupils’ attainment through excellent attendance (97%)

• To improve pupils’ punctuality

• To make attendance a priority for all those associated with the academy, including: parents, pupils, teachers and governors

Government/ Legal Requirements

Schools are required to make the Local Authority aware of every registered student who: fails to attend school regularly; who has been absent from school, with the absence being treated as unauthorised, for a period of not less than 5 school days. Schools must provide their attendance data to the DfE (Department for Education) three times a year. These figures are then published by the DfE as part of the annual publication of school statistics. Where a high proportion of absence has been identified within a specific group of students in school (e.g. SEN, FSM, PP etc), the school may be required by the Secretary of State to set focussed absence targets.

Who is responsible for attendance issues at King Edward VI Handsworth Wood Girls’ Academy?

The Senior Assistant Headteacher of Pastoral Care & Standards (Miss Takhar) is the named member of the Senior Leadership Team who has responsibility for attendance issues. All members of staff, teaching and non-teaching have responsibility for attendance issues in school. Attendance matters are reviewed by the Head Teacher and Senior Leadership Team. Attendance issues are reported termly to the Governing body. Heads of Year are responsible for attendance issues within their year groups and have regular meetings with the school’s Attendance Officer and Key Stage Support Managers. Parents and carers have overall responsibility in ensuring their child attends school.

The flowchart below shows the procedure that is followed to manage attendance at the academy:

Attendance during one school yearequals this number of days absentwhich is approximately this many weeks absentwhich means this number of lessons missed
95%9 days2 weeks50 lessons
90%19 days4 weeks100 lessons
85%29 days6 weeks150 lessons
80%38 days8 weeks200 lessons

Every Minute Counts

Frequent absence can add up to a considerable amount of lost learning and can seriously disadvantage your child in adult life.

  • 5 minutes late every day means around 3 ½ days of education are missed
  • a score of 90% in a test would be a good result but 90% attendance means that a child will have missed around 100 lessons over a school year. 
This grade breaker shows the impact attendance can have on achievement.

If you’re concerned about school attendance

Parents who are concerned about attendance should contact their child’s school to tell them about the difficulties. 

Where possible and appropriate, schools will try to assist parents by offering support or referring them to additional support services.  Schools may also ask for medical evidence if a child’s attendance becomes of concern.

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