Date of Policy: September 2009

Date of review:

1. POLICY  STATEMENT

 

This school believes that good attendance is vital for all students if they are to gain the most from the education we provide.  There are clearly documented links between regular attendance and attainment.  Every form tutor will regularly check the attendance of their class and will follow up a student’s absences with appropriate personnel in school and where necessary the school will follow up with the child’s parents.  We hope that parents will assist us in our work of raising attendance levels throughout the school by:

 

• Ensuring the regular attendance of their child

 

• Informing the school when their child is absent from school

 

• Providing a reason for the absence

 

• Attending any meetings about their child’s attendance, which may be necessary.

 

2. POLICY AIMS AND TARGETS

 

The school’s attendance rate for 2007/08 was               93.1% ↑

Our target attendance was                                         92.8%

The school’s attendance rate for 2008/09 was               91.3% ↓

Our target attendance was                                         93.3%

Our attendance target for 2009/10 is                          93.7%

With a particular focus on reducing persistent absenteeism.

 

The school will:

• Develop clear procedures to enable students to come to school.

 

• Ensure that all students and parents understand the issues and procedures for attendance.

 

• Ensure that all staff including governors, administration, support and non-teaching staff understand the issues and procedures for attendance.

 

• Provide a document outlining the registration procedures.

 

• Ensure that all staff are aware of the procedures and encourage them to adopt a consistent approach to recording and monitoring registration and attendance issues.

 

3. ROLES AND RESPONSIBILITIES

 

All young people have a right to an education.  A child is of statutory school age between 5 and 18, for Year 7 pupils admitted to school in September, 2008.  Parents / carers have a legal responsibility to ensure their child attends regularly and punctually.  If a child does not, parents / carers may be breaking the law.

Parents should ensure their children arrive at school on time, properly attired and in a condition to learn.  Parents need to see themselves as partners with schools in the education of their children.  This includes making sure that their children complete their homework on time and that their children follow school rules about behaviour.

If teachers have worries about a student absence or do not accept the explanation for an absence as genuine or exceptional, they will raise the matter with the Achievement Manager and Attendance Officer.  After their investigation the Attendance Officer may refer the case to the Home School Support Worker (HSSW).

 

The Role of the Headteacher

 

The Headteacher is a key person in our school who motivates and leads the whole staff by demonstrating a commitment to promoting good attendance by:

• Ensuring regular celebrations of good attendance take place.

 

• Providing regular reports to the Governing Body about attendance.

 

• Ensuring the monitoring and implementation of the agreed policy and procedures.

 

• Being available, if appropriate, for parents who may wish to discuss specific problems or in-school difficulties which their child is experiencing.

 

• Ensuring that appropriate training is provided as required on attendance.

 

• Providing regular information to Governors, parents, LA and DCSF, regarding training undertaken, monitoring and evaluation of the school attendance policy and the associated in-school practices.

 

The Role of the Governors

 

The Governing Body of the school is actively engaged in promoting good attendance by supporting and encouraging students and teachers in their work.  They will achieve this by appointing an Attendance Link Governor who will support the school by:

• Being available if required to monitor and evaluate attendance trends in the school.

 

• Being available to attend Fast Track Panel meetings and meet with parents where appropriate.

 

The Role of the School  Leadership Team

 

The school has a designated member of the Leadership Team to adopt specific responsibility for attendance matters.  Over time he will develop an overall view of attendance matters in the school by:

• Leading and supporting the implementation of an attendance policy and framework for the school, within which specified responsibilities are delegated to identified members of staff.

 

• Monitoring and evaluating the work of staff to ensure that specific responsibilities described within the whole school framework are carried out consistently.

 

• Supporting staff in the development of clear guidelines for promoting good attendance.

 

• Supporting staff in the development of in-school strategies to tackle specific lesson truancy and post registration truancy.

 

• Supporting staff in the development of clear guidelines for identifying students who have begun to develop a pattern of absence.

 

• Work with the LA on specific strategies to reduce persistent absenteeism.

 

The Role of the Attendance Officer

 

Our School Attendance Officer provides a key role in promoting good attendance and punctuality and is our main link with HSSW, parents and staff.  She will develop our strategies for improving attendance by:

• Informing the HSSW about any students who have been granted leave of two weeks or more, during term time and any students exceeding ten days unauthorised absence.

 

• Using attendance data to identify forthcoming shortfalls in attendance levels, and develop active strategies to reduce this trend.

 

• Meeting with Achievement Managers and the parents of children who are developing or have developed, a pattern of absences, and agreeing actions which may lead to the child attending more regularly.

  

• Ensuring effective liaison between members of staff dealing with attendance and with Additional Needs so that children who experience multiple difficulties are not over-looked.

 

• Making routine phone calls to parents and sending out standard letters to parents about their child’s attendance.

 

• Setting up Attendance Challenge groups for students where a pattern of absence or punctuality is a cause for concern.

 

• Discussing with the HSSW, individual cases of students causing concern for referral to the Inclusion Panel.

 

• Providing feedback to Line Managers and Governors about effectiveness of school policy and practice in promoting good attendance, and dealing with the absences of individual students.

 

• Working with Achievement Managers and SLT in setting attendance targets, in consultation with form tutors, for the year as a whole, and for each tutor group.

 

• Referring students who have a long-term absence because of ill health, confirmed by their GP, or a consultant, to the PRS.

 

• Consistently checking parents’ explanations for their child’s absence.

 

• Consistently contacting parents in person where an explanation of their child’s absence has not been received.

 

• Preparing and publishing statistical data regarding attendance from registers.

 

• Monitor the use of Lesson Monitor and ensure statutory requirements are met.

 

• Supporting Achievement Managers in maintaining and submitting the LA Persistent Absence Workbook.

 

The Role of the Achievement Manager

 

Achievement Managers have a very important role to play in the school’s framework for promoting good attendance within their respective year group by:

• Meeting with parents of children who are developing or have developed, a pattern of absences, and agreeing actions which may lead to the child beginning to attend more regularly.

 

• Supporting and motivating form tutors in their year team.

 

• Agreeing attendance action plans with the HSSW and the child’s parents and individual students where a pattern of absence is a cause for concern.

 

• Providing the school Attendance Officer with regular updates on attendance issues in their year group.

 

• Receiving and acting upon information from form tutors and subject teachers about students in their year group within the school’s strategy for identifying and addressing lateness, specific lesson and post-registration truancy.

 

• Setting attendance targets, in consultation with SLT, School Attendance Officer and form tutors, for the year as a whole, and for each tutor group.

 

• Monitoring tutor group attendance records and maintain a PA workbook for their year group.

 

• Organising spot checks on lateness, specific lesson truancy and post-registration truancy.

 

• Reporting any serious difficulties and problems which may affect an individual student’s attendance to the form tutor, attendance officer and SLT as appropriate.

 

• Recognising and celebrating the good attendance of students in their year assemblies, tutor groups and through individual praise.

 

 

The Role of the Learning Mentors

 

Learning Mentors are ideally placed to gather information and assist the Achievement Managers and school Attendance Officer, they can offer support by:

• Attending meetings organised with parents of children who are developing a pattern of poor attendance.

 

• Encouraging and supporting the students to achieve the attendance targets set in the agreed action plans with parents and the HSSW.

 

• Referring students who have a long-term absence for a specific reason to the school Attendance Officer.

 

• Co-ordinating work for students to complete at home with subject teachers and ANT.

 

• Co-ordinating work for students excluded for a fixed term, or where the permanent exclusion process has not completed.

 

• Referring a girl who has disclosed that she is, or maybe, pregnant to the ANT or HSSW.

 

 

The Role of Tutors / Class teachers

 

Tutors and subject teachers are ideally placed because of their regular contact with students to assess whether the explanations received for a child’s absence are reasonable, or if the child is at an early stage in developing a pattern of absence.

In our school we recognise that building a good relationship with students is vital in promoting good attendance by:

• Publicly praising those students who attend well, or make an effort to improve their attendance.

 

• Using the school registration system accurately and consistently in accordance with the school guidelines.

 

• Actively promoting actions to meet attendance targets set for the tutor group, and for individual students.

 

• Identifying students who are beginning to develop, or have developed a pattern of absence (95% – 80%) and complete a referral to Inclusion Panel.

 

• Welcoming children back after they have been absent because of illness.

 

• Taking specific steps to assist children returning to school when they have been absent.

 

• Providing a positive role model through their own attendance and punctuality.

 

• Referring their concerns through an Inclusion Panel referral to their Achievement Manager.

 

The Role of Clerical and Administrative Staff

 

Our administrative staff  provide a great deal of valuable support for the attendance officer, learning mentors and teaching staff in promoting attendance by:

 

• Passing information received from some parents at the school to the attendance officer, learning mentor and tutors regularly and consistently.

 

• Producing the school’s good attendance certificates.

 

• Publishing individual students’ attendance records on termly Tracking Reports.

 

The Role of Parents

 

This school believes that its students are able to achieve success when:

• School and family work in partnership.

 

• Parents take an active interest in their child’s work.

 

• Parents ensure that their child attends school regularly and do not allow time off from school for trivial or unacceptable reasons.

 

• Parents contact the school on the first day of absence by 10.00am and provide the reason for absence and intended return date.

 

• Parents provide a written note in the planner on the day of their child’s return to school, including the dates of their absence.

 

• Parents avoid taking their children on holiday during term time.  If this is unavoidable a holiday request form must be completed and authorised by the school prior to the holiday.

 

• Parents ensure that, so far as possible, any work that has been missed because of absence is completed, checking with the staff at school if necessary.

 

• Parents attend any necessary meetings and respond as quickly as possible to any letters and information about their child’s attendance (or other matters).

 

The Role of Students

 

This school believes that all students should attend regularly if they are to succeed and reach their full potential.  Students should:

• Aim for 100% attendance, only being absent through genuine illness.

 

• Arrive in school in time for registration at 8.55am. and be punctual for the start of every lesson.

 

• If they arrive late before 9.20 am, they must go to their form tutors who will mark them as late.

 

• Register at the Attendance Office if they arrive after 9.20am.

 

• Bring a note from home explaining the reason for absence following every session of absence.

 

• See individual teachers and catch up any work missed during the period of absence.

 

• Not leave the school premises during the school day without permission.

 

4. STRATEGIES FOR MAINTAINING GOOD ATTENDANCE AND PUNCTUALITY

• This school believes in early intervention. If a student is recorded as absent in morning registration the Attendance Officer will aim to contact parents that morning.

 

• Regular attendance is acknowledged and rewarded.

 

• Attendance and punctuality will be an issue for discussion through the school council.

 

• Students whose attendance is causing concern will be supported through the faculty structure, Attendance Challenge groups, ANT and the HSSW.

 

• An attendance sweep will take place one day each half term in conjunction with the HSSW.  Every effort is made to make contact with all absentees to confirm reasons for absence by phone or home visits and a check that all those registered in school have remained on site also occurs.  

 

• Results of the monitoring of electronic registration will be shared with Heads of Faculty to ensure all staff meet their statutory requirements re registration.

 

• Attendance will be a Whole School focus subject to the schools procedures for Improvement Planning and Monitoring and Evaluation.

 

• 80% attendance means a student is missing 1 full days education every week.

 

• 80% attendance all the way through secondary school is the equivalent of missing a whole year of education.

 

• For every 10% drop in attendance, a student is likely to achieve 1 less GCSE.

 

• Over 95% attendance (1 day off every 4 weeks) gives students an 80% chance of achieving 5A*-C grades at GCSE.

 

• 90-94% attendance (1 day off a fortnight) gives students a 60% chance of achieving 5A*-C grades at GCSE.

 

• 85-89% attendance (1.5 days off a fortnight) students a 42% chance of achieving 5A*-C grades at GCSE.

 

• Less than 82% attendance (1 day off a week) gives students a 24% chance of achieving 5A*-C grades at GCSE.