Attendance

‘Every day, on time’

Pupil attendance is regularly monitored by the Head Teacher and Deputy Head Teacher. Pupils whose attendance falls below 95% are closely monitored.  Parents of any pupil whose attendance falls below 90% (the national persistent absence figure) will be notified and may be invited in to school for a meeting with the Head/Deputy Head Teacher and an Education Welfare Officer (EWO) to discuss ways in which we can work together to improve attendance.

We strongly urge parents to only take family holidays during the designated school holidays. Long periods of absence are detrimental to a child’s development both academically and socially. Olton Primary School does not authorise any leave from school unless it is deemed by the Head Teacher to be an exceptional circumstance. If you need to take your child out of school for any reason, including a term time holiday, please complete a Leave of Absence form which can be obtained from the school office. Once the request has been considered, a letter will be sent to indicate whether the absence has been authorised or not.

If your child is absent from school due to illness or for any other reason (other than when you have completed a Leave of Absence form), please notify the school by telephone -  0121 706 2644 by 8:30am on each day of absence.

If your child is not present when the registers are checked, we will contact you to clarify the reason for the absence and to assure ourselves of their safety.

Reporting Absence

Please can we ask all parents and carers to report any absence relating to their child promptly. 

It is really important that if you leave a message to say they are unwell that you say what their illness is. At the moment, as we need to establish whether the children are unwell with any of the main COVID symptoms, unless parents are really specific when the message is left, we are needing to call parents back to establish what the children are unwell with.

Please can we remind you of the following to help us all manage absence effectively:

•  Report absence promptly and on each day of absence.
•  Sickness and/or diarrhoea – children need to remain off school for 48 hours after their last bout of either.

• If your child is without symptoms but tests positive on a lateral flow test, they no longer need a PCR to confirm the positive result and should begin their self-isolation immediately.
• If your child has Covid symptoms, you should still get a PCR test.
• From Monday 17 January, people with COVID-19 in England can end their self-isolation after 5 full days, as long as they test negative on day 5 and day 6. However, those who are still positive on their rapid lateral flow tests must stay in isolation until they have had 2 consecutive negative tests taken on separate days.

Thank you for your support with this as having absences confirmed as above, really supports the school office teams.

Illness Guidelines

We understand and appreciate that children can become ill and it is not always easy to decide whether to send them into school or keep them at home. We have attached a guide from the NHS and the link below.

If a child is absent from school parents should contact the school on the first day of absence by 8:30 am to inform the school with the full reason for absence. Parents are expected to maintain contact with the school throughout the absence on a daily basis. Whilst we understand if a child is too unwell for school then they cannot come in but please be aware this will still affect their attendance percentage. Is my child too ill for school? - NHS (www.nhs.uk)

Medical and Dental Appointments:

·       Where possible such appointments should be booked outside of school hours

·       When a pupil has a medical or dental appointment this should be confirmed with an appointment card or letter.

·       Pupils are expected to attend school prior to the appointment and return to school after the appointment. Any absence outside of the appointment/travel time will be unauthorised.

Leave of Absence:

If you are planning on taking your child out of school for any reason other than illness, you must complete a Leave of Absence form 14 days in advance (which can be obtained from the school office). All holiday requests, excluding those with exceptional circumstances will be unauthorised. Please be aware that parents may be issued with a Fixed Penalty Notice by the Local Authority for unauthorised absences.

Unexplained absences:

Unexplained absences from school give serious cause for concern as the school is unable to confirm the whereabouts and safety of a child. 

·       At 8.40am/8.50am the school registers are checked for any absences where there has been no contact by parents or reason given.

·       School staff will attempt to make telephone contact with parents to ascertain a reason for the child’s absence from school.

·       If the parent/carer cannot be contacted a home visit will be undertaken

·       If there is no answer to the home visit other the school will attempt to contact other emergency contacts.

·       We need to be sure where all our pupils are during the school day and if we are unable to ascertain this, and are concerned, it may be necessary to contact the police to undertake a safe and well check.

·       School is required to have more than one emergency contact for each pupil.

·       Please ensure the school has up-to-date addresses and telephone numbers.

Punctuality

It is important that pupils are punctual so that they do not miss out on the beginning of each school day.  Children must attend on time to be given a present mark for the session. 

·       To access the most of the school day we ask parents to ensure that their children are in school for 8.30am-8.40am for Juniors and 8.40am-8.50am for Infants.

·       Children arriving after 8.40am (Juniors)/8.50am (Infants) are late for school and must report to the school office.

·       Where a pupil arrives after the register closes this will be classed as an unauthorised absence (code U as per DFE compulsory attendance codes).

·       School registration will close at 8.55am(Juniors)/ 9.05am (Infants).

Parents can support regular school attendance by

·       Making sure they and their child leave for school early enough to arrive at school on time.

·       Supporting and encouraging their child by attending parents’ evenings and other events.

·       Contacting the school to discuss any concerns regarding their child’s attendance.

·       Working in partnership with the school to resolve any issues that are impacting on their child’s attendance.

·       Making any medical appointments outside of school hours whenever possible. 

·       Not taking children out of school for holidays in term time or for other unnecessary reasons.

At the end of the school day, we ask that your child is collected promptly at the end of their day/session. Teachers will remain on the playground or at their classroom door for five minutes. After this time the children will be taken to the school office. If any child has not been collected ten minutes after their normal collection time they will be taken to after school club and a charge will be applied for this. We appreciate that there may be an exceptional instance where a parent is running late and so we ask that you inform the office of this.

We thank you for your support and co-operation in helping us to continue to secure and raise school attendance for all our pupils.

If you would like more information regarding the school's approach to securing good school attendance, please see the school website for the Attendance Policy and Procedures.