Attendance Information & how to support good attendance

We are pleased that children want to attend our school and that they know that good attendance matters.  Pupils who have good attendance: get better jobs in the future, achieve better results, make better friendships and have good self-esteem and confidence.

We want to continue to work with you to ensure the school environment is somewhere your child wants to be and support you in ensuring they can attend every day, on time. 

Encouraging regular school attendance is one of the most powerful ways you can prepare your child for success, both in school and in their working life. When you make school attendance a priority, you help your child get better grades, develop healthy life habits, avoid dangerous behaviour and have a better chance of securing their ideal career path.

Our intention is always to follow a ‘support first’ approach whenever attendance concerns arise.  Part of being able to support families is ensuring you have access to as much information as possible to understand why attending school is important and what happens where absences occur.

We hope you find the following information useful to assist your understanding and help with decision making in respect of your child’s absences from school, should they occur.  We would like to take this opportunity to thank you in anticipation of your support to improve attendance levels and progress.

The Academy Council are fully committed to supporting the school to raise standards of achievement and there is a strong relationship between good attendance and educational achievement.  A 10-day holiday will result in the loss of 50 hours of learning time, which can have a serious impact on progress.

What is absence and how is it recorded?

Every half-day (either an AM or PM session) = one session. 

One whole day = two sessions. 

Absence must be categorised as AUTHORISED or UNAUTHORISED.  The school must record absences using the statutory coding given by the DfE.  This is why information about absence is sought from parents so that the registers can be accurate.  School must also follow up on absences quickly to meet their safeguarding duties and visits to the family home may be necessary.  Where children cannot be located, schools must report the information to the LA Child Missing Education (CME) Dept.

Unauthorised absence is where the Headteacher/Principal or their designated staff members do not consider it reasonable to be absent due to the reason given, or overall level of concern, and/or for which no “Term Time Absence Request” has been received.

Authorised absence may be for illness, medical/dental appointments (which unavoidably fall within the school day), emergencies or other short exceptional cause/circumstance that is unavoidable and the Headteacher/Principal agrees the absence is necessary. 

What do we do to prevent absences and support removal of barriers to attending school or accessing education?

So that we can prevent students falling into PA or SA (persistent or severe absentee) categories we monitor all attendance.  This enables us to identify students early who may need support to remove barriers to them attending school. 

This includes having early conversations with you (and your child if old enough) and meeting with you to discuss absences, even if they are authorised absences, as all absence must be explored in line with the above statutory duties.  The actions taken to explore, support or consider legal actions will depend on the reasons for absence e.g., an absence for a 2-week hospital admission, would be treated differently to a 2-week holiday, or 1 of week Chicken Pox would be treated differently to 1 or 2 days per week over a few weeks.

We also promote having good attendance by ensuring that you and your child has information about their attendance level.  We do this in newsletters, and information around school as well as discussions and assemblies.  This helps to raise awareness of how they are doing, how important it is to come to school and what to do if it feels less easy for them.  We frequently recognise effort to achieve good attendance, not just 100% awards as we feel it is important to recognise that some barriers to attending are not chosen or the fault of the child or family.

See our visual roadmap of process here – Meridian Trust Attendance Roadmap Sept 2024.pdf

What can you do to help your child maintain a high level of attendance?

There are several things you can do:

• Support your child to attend every day, on time, equipped and ready to learn.
• Ensure you request all planned absence in advance, and only do so for absence that can be demonstrated as exceptional circumstances – plan family trips, holidays, or events outside of term time.   
• Ensure you notify us as soon as possible in the case of unplanned absence e.g., an emergency or illness. Please see above contacts for absence.
• Where possible, arrange health appointments at times that prevent absence from the AM or PM registration points.  Signing out to go to appointments and then signing back into school is a good option, if after school or holiday time appointments cannot be arranged.   NB. We do understand it may not always be possible to avoid and we encourage you to share any supportive information with us where it’s not, as it helps us to keep our register coding sympathetic and accurate.
• Encourage and reinforce positive thinking about school and its importance, with the understanding that regular attendance means attending every day the school is open unless an exceptional or statutory reason applies, as detailed above. 
• Talk openly about school and/or any worries that occur to build self-awareness, encourage problem solving skills and boost confidence to know it is normal to be worried about things, but that we can help ourselves by sharing those worries with others.   
• Contact your child’s tutor/class teacher if you are having trouble in getting your child to attend or if there are things affecting their learning or happiness at school.  Prevention is generally better than attempting to cure later.
• Proactively engage with support to enable the removal of barriers to attendance and education and ensure we have up to date contact information for you in case of emergency. 

Further details about government policy and advice on this matter is available help-with-getting-your-child-to-go-to-school

The Meridian Trust Attendance and Support Information