Attendance      

Statutory Duty of Schools

The Education Act 1996 requires parents or guardians to make sure their children receive efficient, full-time education, either by regular attendance at school or otherwise. Schools are responsible for recording pupil attendance twice a day: once at the start of the morning session and once during the afternoon session. An entry must be made in the attendance register for all pupils of compulsory school age who are on the school’s admission roll.

Aim

This is a successful primary school and your child plays their part in making it so. We aim to create an environment that enables and encourages all members of our school community to reach out for excellence. For our pupils to gain the greatest benefit from their education, it is vital they attend regularly. Your child should arrive at school on time every day our school is open, unless there is an unavoidable reason for absence.

We consistently work towards a goal of 96% attendance for all children as an absolute minimum, although studies show that pupils make even better progress and go on to achieve more if their attendance is nearer to or ideally at 100%.

Every opportunity is used to convey to pupils and their parents or carers the importance of regular and punctual attendance.

The Government expects schools and local authorities to:

⇒ Promote good attendance and reduce absence (including persistent absence);
⇒ Make sure every pupil has access to full-time education to which they are entitled;
⇒ Act early to address patterns of absence, and;
⇒Work to ensure that parents, carers and guardians perform their legal duty in ensuring their children of compulsory school age who are registered at school attend regularly. 

Why Regular Attendance is Important

Any absence affects the pattern of a child’s schooling, and regular absence will seriously affect their learning. Any pupil’s absence also disrupts teaching routines, and therefore may also affect the learning of others in the same class.

Ensuring a child’s regular attendance at school is a legal responsibility of parents, carers ad guardians, and permitting absence from school without good reason is an offence in law and may result in prosecution. Our school attendance policy is shown below, along with a guide to help you decide if your child should come in to school or not when poorly.

Promoting Regular Attendance

Helping to create a pattern of regular attendance is everyone’s responsibility. This includes parents, carers, guardians, pupils themselves, as well as all members of school staff be they teaching or non-teaching.

To help us all focus on this, we will endeavour to:

• ⇒ Give details on attendance in our weekly newsletter and on the website;
• ⇒ Report to at least termly to parents, carers and guardians on their children's attendance and punctuality rate;
• ⇒ Celebrate good attendance by awarding certificates (see link below), and;
• ⇒ Run promotional events when parents, carers, guardians, pupils and staff can work together on raising attendance levels across the school.

  BOSBURY PRIMARY SCHOOL ATTENDANCE POLICY 

 NHS GUIDANCE - IS MY CHILD TOO ILL FOR SCHOOL?

Lateness and Punctuality

Bosbury School opens to all pupils at 8:40am, with all children being seated in class and the register taken at 8:50am. Registers close at 9:00am, when guided reading and phonics lessons begin to start the day.

If a child arrives at school between 9:00am and 9:20am without prior notice being given as to the reason why (ie. a doctor or dentist appointment), they will be recorded as being LATE (L) on the class register. Pupils who arrive after 9:20am, again without a legitimate reason being given to the school beforehand will be marked as an UNAUTHORISED ABSENCE (U) on the register, meaning that they are very late and will not achieve their attendance mark for that morning.

Poor punctuality and persistent lateness can lead to a child...

• ⊗ Feeling embarrassed or stressed in front of their classmates;
• ⊗ Missing out on important catch-up time with their friends before learning starts;
• ⊗ Missing the beginning of vital lessons such as phonics, which could lead to them falling behind with their learning;
• ⊗ Missing important instructions for the rest of the school day, and;
• ⊗ Adopting bad habits which could compromise their employability as adults in the future.

The table and illustrations below show the extent of learning which could be missed by being consistently late to school every day:

We know that a child's punctuality has a direct and significant impact on their education. Children who are regularly late to school do not achieve their full potential, and do fall behind their peers!

Please support us by ensuring that your child attends school regularly (at least 96% attendance throughout the academic year), and arrives ready to learn on time between 8:40am and 8:50am.

Take a look at the quiz below from our Attendance Awareness Month, which lists a variety of possible reasons as to why a child might be off school, and whether these scenarios are a legitimate reason for absence.

The quiz was produced before the COVID-19 pandemic occurred, and so as a guide, a child who tests positive for COVID-19 should still attend school if they only have mild cold-like symptoms such as a runny nose, sore throat or slight cough. A pupil with more significant symptoms and most importantly a high temperature should be kept off school however until symptoms improve and temperature returns to normal, usually after three days of testing positive.

As a reminder, please note that children with norovirus or any other form of sickness and diarrhoea should not return to school until a minimum of 48 hours have passed since the last symptoms occurred.