Information Hub

Excellent attendance at school allows a child to have the best possible start in life.

Going to school regularly is important for your child’s future.  Parents / carers are responsible for making sure their child receives full-time education.  Parents are legally responsible for making sure that children attend school.  If your child doesn’t go to school, you could be fined or prosecuted.

There are lots of reasons why a child should attend school:

• To learn
• To build confidence and self-esteem
• To understand responsibility
• To develop new skills
• To grow as individuals
• To gain qualifications
• To make new friends, have fun and develop life skills
• To develop awareness of other cultures

Good school attendance is not just beneficial, it’s essential.  Attending school is directly linked to improved exam performance which should in turn lead to further learning opportunities and better job prospects when the child grows up.

The more children attend school the more likely it is that they will have good levels of attainment. Even small improvements to attainment at 11 years old can increase the amount a person earns before they are 33 years old – an increase of up to 25%!

1. Pupils with higher attainment at KS2 and KS4 had lower levels of absence over the key stage compared to those with lower attainment.
2. Generally, the higher the percentage of sessions [lessons] missed across the key stage at KS2 and KS4, the lower the level of attainment at the end of the key stage.

Essentially, DfE information shows that the more children attend school, the more they achieve and the better their chances are of earning well.

Going to school helps to develop:

• Friendships
• Social Skills
• Life skills
• Team values
• Cultural awareness
• Career pathways

How to prevent your child from missing school?

You can do this by…

• having a routine from an early age and sticking it to it
• making sure your child understands the importance of good attendance and punctuality
• making sure they understand the possible implications for themselves and you as a parent if they don’t attend
• taking an interest in their education – ask about school work and encourage them to get involved in school activities
• discussing any problems they may have at school and letting their teacher or Headteacher / Deputy Headteacher know about anything that is causing concern
• not letting them take time off school for minor ailments or holidays during term time

To avoid disrupting your child’s education, you should arrange (as far as possible), appointments and outings:

• after school hours
• at weekends
• during school holidays

Each year there are 170 days that children can go on holiday, go on outings, have appointments etc. The 195 days of school must be prioritised.

Children may only be absent from school IF they are too ill to go to school or IF the headteacher has authorised an absence for exceptional reasons – and this has been applied for, by parents, before the absence.

What happens when my child is too ill to go to school?

By 9am, parents must tell us, if their child is absent because they are too ill to go to school.

Office staff, senior leaders, our learning mentor and our attendance company, Aquinas. monitor absences. This monitoring may lead to home visits.

We undertake home visits:

1. To check on the well-being of children.
   
   
2. To see if we can offer any support to children and parents.

Sometimes, we tell parents that we will be carrying-out home visits and sometimes we don’t.

What does ‘too ill to go to school’ mean? 

The NHS has clear information to answer this question. That information can be found via this link, https://www.nhs.uk/live-well/is-my-child-too-ill-for-school/, and is attached to this letter.