Attendance
Greenfield Primary School
Addressing School Absence
Over the last few years our attendance figures have been below the Nationally expected levels. Schools have ever increasing pressure to ensure that attendance at least meets 96%, the National expectation for attendance. Last academic year, attendance was 91.9%. The National Average is over 95%, so this is what we need to aim for! Whilst we know that attendance has been impacted by the pandemic, our children need to attend school every day now in order to catch up with any learning they missed.
If a school does not achieve 95% it can be considered inadequate. This is one of the reasons why we need to chase poor attendance to ensure that not only do we meet these levels, but that all our children have the education that they need in order to make good progress at school.
If children are not at school regularly, this is proven to impact on their learning. The more school that is missed, the more this will impact on learning. 96% attendance is still 10 days of school missed in a year - 2 whole weeks of learning!
If children are late to school every day, they will miss their first lesson of the day - this can have significant impact on their learning for this subject.
The Government have told schools not to authorise any holiday absence in term time. We do not authorise any holiday absence in term time. Should you take holiday in term time please be aware that you may be fined.
|
% Attendance -Year |
Equivalent Days |
Number of lessons missed |
|
95% |
9 Days |
36 |
|
90% |
19 Days |
76 |
|
85% |
29 Days |
116 |
|
80% |
38 Days |
152 |
Reducing illness days:
When a child has a day off we must be notified by a parent/carer as to why. This could be via a note, e mail or telephone call. A child will be marked as an unauthorised absence until we have received communication from a parent/carer.
If your child is saying they do not feel well and you are unsure that it warrants a day off, please send them to school. We will contact you if they are ill at school.
If your child has a dental or medical appointment in school, please do your best to arrange it after your child has had their afternoon mark in the register. If it needs to be a morning appointment, please try and bring them to school first to get their mark, and return them to school afterwards.
Please be aware that if your child arrives late for school without reason after the registers close, this will be marked as an unauthorised absence.
Unsatisfactory attendance:
If your child’s absence drops to below a satisfactory level, we will write to you about this situation and offer to meet with you to discuss the reasons behind this. We will ask that your children avoid any further absences and try to support you in achieving this.
If your child’s attendance continues to fall, we will ask you to come in for a meeting with the school and the Education Welfare Officer for Greenfield Primary.
At this point the Education Welfare Officer may ring you or visit your home if your child has any other absences.
If attendance continues to fall, unless there is a verified medical reason for absence, this could end in prosecution of the parent.
Rewards:
Children who have 100% attendance have certificates at the end of each term and prizes at the end of the school year.
Classes with good attendance win additional playtimes and classes with 100% attendance in any week win a non-uniform day.
We hope you will work with us to ensure that Greenfield achieves at least 96% attendance every year! Thank you.