Attendance and Punctuality

Good attendance is not simply a legal requirement. It is essential if pupils are to take full advantage of the range of opportunities that school offers and gain the skills that will equip them for their next stage of education and for adult life.

All children are entitled to receive the full benefits of education; poor attendance is therefore a safeguarding issue.

We recognise punctuality as an important related issue as frequent lateness will cause children to miss aspects of their education, is upsetting for the child, and is disruptive to others. We recognise the importance of a clear understanding of the need for regular and punctual attendance in preparing children for the workplace.

Rushy Meadow Start and End of Day Procedures

Absence

If your child is absent due to sickness, or any other reason, please telephone the school by 9am and leave a message on the absence line.

The school telephone number is 020 8669 7588. [Please do not send an email.]

The phone call needs to be made each day of your child's absence, unless the absence has been agreed in advance, for example, if your child is going into hospital for an operation.

If you do not call the school to confirm why your child is not at school, we will follow our graduated response procedures which involves you receiving text messages from the school.

If you do not respond to the school texts, we regard this as a concern because we have not heard from you and we have no explanation for your child's absence.  We will therefore be concerned for your child's wellbeing and we will log our concern on our internal record system.

Parents/Carers are responsible for making sure that their children of compulsory school age receive a suitable full-time education and if your child is registered at Rushy Meadow Primary Academy, this means you have a duty to ensure they attend school regularly.

It is a Government requirement that schools publish a record of attendance.  Parents who do not inform us of reasons for their child’s absence, or whose children are continually late, will be contacted by the school to request information and will be asked to provide medical evidence when their child is not attending due to medical reasons.

Good school attendance means your child attends school over 96% of the time.  Any child attending less than 90% is classified as a 'persistent absentee', and the school has a duty to contact parents, hold meetings, and inform the Borough Attendance Support Team Lead of these children.  We may also complete unannounced home visits.

Leave of Absence

Parents will be required to request certain types of absence in advance. All requests for absence will be handled by the headteacher – the decision to grant or refuse the request will be at the sole discretion of the headteacher. The headteacher’s decision is not subject to appeal.

The school will only grant a pupil a leave of absence in exceptional circumstances. In order to have requests for a leave of absence considered, the school will expect parents to contact the headteacher in writing at least two weeks prior to the proposed start date of the leave of absence, providing the reason for the proposed absence and the dates during which the absence would be expected to occur.

Any requests for leave during term time will be considered on an individual basis. If the absence is granted, the headteacher will determine the length of time that the pupil can be away from school. The school is highly unlikely to grant leave of absence for the purposes of family holidays.

Requests for leave will not be granted in the following circumstances:
• Immediately before and during statutory assessment periods (as published on the school’s website)
• When a pupil’s attendance record shows any unauthorised absence
• Where a pupil’s authorised absence record is already above 10% for any reason

If term-time leave is not granted, taking a pupil out of school will be recorded as an unauthorised absence and will result in sanctions, such as a penalty notice. The school cannot grant leaves of absence retrospectively; therefore, any absences that were not approved by the school in advance will be marked as unauthorised.

National Framework for Penalty Notices

Monitoring Attendance and Punctuality

To ensure that pupils across the school maintain good levels of attendance and punctuality, our Attendance Team (led by Attendance Champions, Mr Needham and Mrs Schalkwyk) regularly monitor attendance. We have created flowcharts for Attendance and Punctuality to indicate what support we commit to for every child and what is in place to address concerns.

Rushy Meadow Attendance Flowchart
Rushy Meadow Punctuality Flowchart

How can you support your child to attend well?

To support parents with attendance and punctuality, we have created a helpful parent guide:

Rushy Meadow Attendance and Punctuality Parent Guide

Why Good Attendance Matters

Research suggests that students who attend school regularly could be at less risk of getting involved in antisocial behaviour or crime.

Below is a table showing how children’s percentage attendance equates to the amount of school time missed.

Below is a graph which illustrates how being late to school every day over a school year adds up to lost learning time over one academic year.