Parents have a legal responsibility to ensure that their child has regular and punctual attendance. It is the headteacher’s responsibility to ensure that this happens and also to support families who are having difficulty. Cara Whitehead is our Pastoral and Senior Attendance Champion. Her school mobile number is 07877 029504 and her email contact is cwhitehead@wrfed.pmat.academy.

What to do if you are late

We ask that all children arrive at school, by 8.55am at the latest, ready to start the day at 9.00am. A member of staff will be at the school gate from 8.50am to greet our families, and you may leave your child under our supervision from this time. The bell will ring at 8.55am, ready for a 9.00am prompt registration.

If your child arrives after 9.00am, please enter via the main entrance. You will need to sign your child into school in the ‘Lates Register’. A ‘Late’ mark (Code L on the register) will be made in the register for any child arriving between 9.01am and 9.10am. Any child arriving after 9.10am, after the official registers have closed at this time, will be marked in the register as ‘Late’ (Code U for Unauthorised Absence) as per the guidance from the Local Authority and the DfE. The headteacher and Pastoral Support Worker review the registers on a regular basis and parents will be contacted by letter should lateness persist, as per DfE and Local Authority guidance.

What to do if your child is ill

If your child is ill, it is really important that you email or telephone the school office before 9.00am (ideally earlier and leave a message) on the morning of each day’s absence. The school has a rigorous process to ensure that no child is ‘missing in education’ and when absences are unaccounted for, school will telephone all numbers and email all contacts provided to try to ensure all absences are explained. If, by 9.40am, we have had no contact from the family, this will trigger our ‘Missing in Education’ procedure as a safeguarding concern – this involves informing the Local Authority and Social Care & Early Help Services.

Children who take time off school to attend medical appointments will be expected to provide evidence of the appointment card. If this cannot be provided, the absence will be recorded as unauthorised. Please may we ask parents to make appointments before or after school or in the holidays wherever possible. This keeps disruptions to your child’s learning to a minimum.

Attendance Targets

We do celebrate good attendance – children who achieve above 98% attendance across the year are recognised at the end of the year. Our Pastoral Support Worker has a focus on attendance in each newsletter, reporting the totals for each school.

Our Attendance target for 2024/25 is 97%.

Absence Requests

If you would like to take your child out of school for an exceptional reason, please complete an Application for Pupil Leave of Absence form which is available at the bottom of this article. Where possible, it should be completed 6 weeks before the first date of requested absence. You will receive a formal response from the Head of School, after considering the reasons for your request.

Winter Illnesses

As the weather gets colder, it is unavoidable that children and staff will pick up colds and winter vomiting bugs. To limit infections, please note that if your child experiences either vomiting or diarrhoea, to limit the spread of infection to others, they MUST NOT return to school until they have been clear for a full 48 hours from the last bout of vomiting or diarrhoea. We are not being fussy; this is strict legislation from the Local Health Authority and helps to stop the spread of infection. Thank you for complying with this rule at all times.

Children with a high temperature should stay at home until the temperature has returned to normal and they feel well enough to return to school. Thank you for complying with this guidance.

Attendance Changes from September 2024 – Information for Parents Leaflet

NHS Guidance – Is my child too ill for school?

Attendance Advice

Requests for a Leave of Absence

This article explains the law around leave of absence from school during term time from September 2013.

The Department for Education requires Local Authorities to implement government amendments to the regulations regarding the taking of Leave of Absence in term-time, which will came into force on the 1st September 2013. The new law gives no entitlement to parents to take their child on holiday during term time.

Headteachers would not be expected to class any term time holiday as exceptional. Therefore Headteachers will only be able to grant leave of absence in exceptional circumstances and this will still be at the discretion of the Headteacher.

No parent/carer can demand leave of absence as of right. The Education Regulations state that applications must be made in advance by a parent/carer with whom the child lives and can only be authorised by the school in exceptional circumstances. Each leave application is considered individually by the school taking into account any factors presented by the family. Application forms are available from school and can be downloaded below.

The following are examples of the criteria for leave of absence, which may be considered as ‘exceptional’:

  1. Service personnel returning from active deployment
  2. Where inflexibility of the parents’ leave or working arrangement is part of the organisational or company policy. This would need to be evidenced by the production or confirmation from the organisation/company
  3. Where leave is recommended as part of a parents’ or child’s rehabilitation from medical or emotional problems. Evidence must be provided.
  4. When a family needs to spend time together to support each other during or after a crisis

This is not an exhaustive list and Headteachers  must consider the individual circumstances of each case when making a decision on this matter. Leave in term time is only acceptable against these exceptional circumstances and can not be granted on the basis of attendance record, academic performance or the ‘experience’ offered by being out of school.

Where a headteacher feels that there may be exceptional circumstances which does not fit the criteria, they may refer to the local authority for advice. The decision of the Headteacher is, however, final. (Please note that the ability to access a reduced cost of a holiday does not constitute an exceptional circumstance.)

Where a child is taken out of school for the purpose of leave of absence in term time without the permission of the school, the absence will be coded as unauthorised and as such may result in a Penalty Notice. Penalties are issued and applied by the Local Authority and as such are not at the discretion of the headteacher. If a Penalty Notice is not paid, the matter may be taken to prosecution in the Magistrates Court.

Amendments to 2007 Penalty Notice regulations will reduce the timescales for paying a penalty notice. Parents must, from 1st September 2013, pay £60 within 21 days or £120 within 28 days. This brings attendance penalty notices in line with other types of penalty notices and allows local authorities to act faster on prosecution if the fine is not paid.

We ask all parents to be mindful that taking a pupil on leave during term time interrupts teaching and learning and will disrupt your child’s educational progress.

Application for Leave of Absence form

FAQ’s about Term Time Absences for Parents from September 2024

DfE Guidance regarding Pupil Absences