Attendance
What to to do if your child is unable to attend school
A telephone call as early as possible from the first day of absence is required. We operate a ‘first day calling’ system which means if your child is absent from school and we haven’t heard from you by 9.30am we will send a text or phone you to find out why your child is absent. If we are unable to contact you we will call other people on your emergency contacts list to try to contact you. If we are unable to make contact with you we may carry out a home visit to ensure that you and your child are safe and well. If your child has an infectious illness your child should only return at your doctors recommendations. We would ask parents not to send their child back to school too soon after a period of illness, especially in the case of sickness and diarrhoea when children should not return to school until 48 hours after the last bout of illness. We are happy to have children in school with coughs and colds. A link to infectious diseases and their incubation periods can be found here.
Holidays in term time: Links between Attendance and Attainment
As you are aware recent changes to the 2006 regulations mean that requests for family holidays in term time can no longer be authorised by school unless there are exceptional circumstances.
Exceptional circumstances may include:
- Armed forces personnel returning from a tour of duty
- Police or other service personnel where leave has been cancelled during school holidays
- Close family wedding/funeral
if you are taking your child out of school on a family holiday please write a letter to the head teacher or complete the leave of absence form under Parent tab of the website stating the dates you are requesting to take your children out of school and the reason for the request.
The Local Authority operates a system where any pupil will meet the criteria for legal intervention where they have:
- 10 consecutive sessions of unauthorised absence where some or all of the absence may be attributed to an unauthorised holiday in term time; or
- 15% unauthorised absence over the period of 6 school weeks for reasons other than an unauthorised term time holiday.
The intervention could be in the form of a fixed penalty notice. Any pupil at All Hallows’ CE (VA) Primary School who meets either of the criteria will be referred to the Local Authority for action for be considered.
If a fixed penalty notice is issued it is a fine of £60 per parent per child which must be paid in one payment in 21 days. If unpaid, a further invoice of £60 per parent per child is issued; both individual invoices would then have to be paid making a total payment of £120 in 28 days. You should be aware that failure to pay the total amount within the timescale will result in legal action being taken. I hope we can count on your support in this matter. Please do not hesitate to contact the school if you have any questions.
Each year the Governors set an attendance target. This year the target is 96% attendance.
Illness and emergencies
If your child is taken I’ll or has an accident during the day we will need to contact you as soon as possible. Please provide the school office with up to date home, mobile and work telephone numbers so we are able to contact you. It would also be helpful to have the number of a friend or relative who could collect your child in such an instance in case we are not able to contact you straight away. Children collected from or returned to school during the day must report to the school office for signing in or out of the register so that we have up to date information in case of a fire or other emergency.