Attendance
All children have a right to access a full education and attendance in school every day is crucial to their learning.
Parents do have a legal duty to ensure children attend school every day wherever possible and that they are on time and remain in school for the full day to access their education. School has a statutory responsibility to uphold this expectation and to have systems in place to monitor the attendance of all pupils.
Our ambition is to achieve 100% attendance with a minimum aim for all children to have at least 96% attendance and achieve an attendance award at the end of the year. Parents and carers should be aware that the attendance percentage is not the only indicator of concerning attendance. Frequent lateness and absence patterns may also highlight a problem.
School is following the Rotherham Local Authority attendance procedures and work closely with Early Help services. School are able to make referrals for support where attendance is concerning and will talk to you if they feel that an Early Help referral would be useful. Information regarding Early Help and attendance can be found on the 'Rotherham Early Help South' Facebook site.
Every school day matters as the below illustrates:
- 98% attendance = 4 school days missed
- 95% attendance = 10 school days missed (2 weeks)
- 90% attendance = 20 school days missed (4 weeks)
- 85% attendance = 30 school days missed (6 weeks)
- 80% attendance = 38 school days missed (8 weeks)
- Five minutes late each day = 3 days missed each year
Absence
If your child is too ill to come to school, parents must contact school on the first day of absence. The best way to do this is to call the school office and/or leave a voicemail message.
If school haven't received contact from a parent/carer, office staff will make attempts to call the parent, or the emergency contacts for the child, to obtain a reason for absence.
If we are unable to contact a parent/carer, then a referral may be made to the Rotherham Early Help team. For this reason, it is vital that parents/carers contact school on a child’s first day of absence.
Parents and carers are able to keep up to date with their child’s attendance through the Arbor app. Please speak to office staff if you are not yet using this facility.
If you have any questions about the school’s policy on attendance, please get in touch.
Please see documents below for further information.
SCHOOL ATTENDANCE POLICY 2023/2024
Rotherham LA Leaflet for Parents
Should my child go to school? Online checker
You may also like to visit the following website for further information: