Consitently good attendance at school has a strong link to long-term academic performance. The barriers to accessing education are wide and complex, both within and beyond the school gates, and are often specific to individual pupils and families. Good attendance begins with school being somewhere pupils want to be – and this foundation of our approach to ensuring good attendance.
For various reasons, some pupils may have more difficulties in attending school. It is therefore vital that school works in partnership with pupils and
parents collaboratively to remove any barriers to attendance by building strong and trusting relationships and working together to put the right support in place.
Where parents decide to have their child registered at school, they have an additional legal duty to ensure their child attends that school regularly. This means their child must attend every day that the school is open, except in a small number of allowable circumstances such as being too ill to attend or being given permission for an absence in advance from the school. As a school, we will alway work in a supportive way to try an help with any issues around attendance.
Reporting Absences
It is a parent’s/carer’s responsibility to inform school for a child’s absence. This should be done as early as possible – and by 10:00am on the day at the latest.
A phone call or contact (e.g. in person or via email) on the first and any consequent days of absence should be made. If no contact has been made by this time, we will seek out contact (i.e. through phone calls to contact information provided to school). If we are still unable to make contact, to ensure that children are fully safeguarded, we will be required to take further steps (such as contacting the police to check that there is not a significant issue).
In the case of medical appointments, school should be notified in advance of the appointment. The appointment letter or message should be sent to school so that it can be filed against the pupil’s records.
Requests for leave of absence in term time should be made in advance by contacting the school office – where a request form can be provided. These must be returned before the leave of absence.
Please note that it is legal duty that absences are recorded accurately. In cases where the accuracy of a reported absence is suspected, then this will be followed up. Please see website post on recent changes to Shropshire Council guidance regarding this: https://browncleeschool.org.uk/leave-of-absence-in-term-time/.
Please see the website post regarding the most recent significant changes to attendance policy: https://browncleeschool.org.uk/changes-to-attendance-policy/.
Please see the Attendance Policy in our Policy Section of the website to see this in more detail.