ON TIME - EVERY DAY
At Springwell, we regard regular attendance as essential to ensuring the best possible outcomes for all of our pupils. There is a clear link between good attendance and good progress. For our pupils to be safe and gain the greatest benefit from their education it is vital that they attend regularly and are on time, every day. To support pupils we work hard to ensure pupils feel that they presence is valued and that they are missed when they are absent or late.
Poor attendance can seriously affect each pupil’s:
Attainment in school
Relationships with staff and their ability to form meaningful relationships
Confidence to attempt new work and work alongside others
Further information about our attendance commitments, expectations and processes can be found in our Attendance Policy.
Reporting Absence
If your child is unable to attend school you must:
Contact school as soon as possible on the first day of absence explaining the reason for absence.
To support your child and help promote good attendance, school will:
Telephone parents and carers on the first day of absence if we have not heard from them
Ask probing questions to find out why your child is not at school
Work with you to ensure your child's return to school as quickly as possible
Invite you into school to discuss the situation if your child is persistently absent or a pattern of absence starts to form
Take further action if attendance falls, or is at risk of falling below 90%.
Appointments in the School Day
Appointments for medical or dental treatment should, whenever possible, be outside normal school hours. If this is impossible the school should be notified well in advance by telephone or written note.
Attendance monitoring will be carried out by the administration team, the form tutor and the Education Welfare officer who will telephone parents of absent pupils for whom we have not received notification of absence. The Governors are obliged by law to publish attendance and truancy figure for the school.
Our Education Welfare Officer may be requested to visit if there are attendance issues concerning your child.
Holidays in Term Time
Taking holidays in term time will affect a pupil’s schooling as much as any other absence and we expect parents to help us by not taking children away in term time. The current law does not give any entitlement to parents to take their children on holiday during term time. Any application for leave must be in exceptional circumstances and the Head of School must be satisfied that the circumstances warrant the granting of leave. Parents can be fined for taking their child on holiday during term time without consent from the school.
Our Attendance Policy sets our the principles and guidelines through which we seek to raise attendance; improve punctuality and, as a consequence, raise levels of achievement.