As you will be aware, attendance at school is important for every child’s attainment and rate of progress and poor attendendance can be seriously detrimental for your child. We want to work collaboratively with parents/carers to ensure the best outcomes for our children. 

Students who have 90% or less attendance are classified as Persistent Absentees and have missed a substantial amount of school time throught the year. We understand that there are times when a child is too ill to attend school or must have a leave of absence for an exceptional circumstance but the school will monitor children who fall into this category and may request for the family to contact our Family Support Worker, Julia Sumner. 

Our Attendance Policy can be found here.

Please see the below information regarding leave of absence, sickness and penalty notices. 

Holidays are NOT permitted during term time regardless of the reasons taken or how good a child’s attendance is at school and will always result in a penalty notice unless we are provided with evidence which confirms it is an exceptional circumstance.

It is the Headteacher’s decision if an absence will be authorised or unauthorised.  All requests should be made in writing or by completing the app form 4 weeks before the holiday is taken. The school may automatically unauthorise a request if we are not made aware of an absence at least 4 weeks prior. 

Each case is considered individually. Whilst a different school or Headteacher may authorise an absence, this does not mean that we will do the same as each Headteacher’s opinion will differ and each school will follow their own policies and procedures.

Parents will be sent a letter via the school app with the Headteacher’s decision. Parents have the right to appeal this decision with the Headteacher, but this must be done before the holiday is taken. Parents can appeal by putting in writing the reasons why they believe it should be authorised and submitting any evidence to support this.  

Parents will receive a further letter after the absence is taken if we will pursue a penalty notice.  

If a family is fined, we remind you that it is the school’s legal duty to pursue a penalty notice for unauthorised absences and this is legally actioned by the County Council and all financial gains are kept by them.

The school does not benefit financially from pursuing penalty notices.

As parents ourselves, we understand the reasons why a parent will consider taking their children on a family holiday during school time, especially with increasing costs and it being far cheaper to travel during term time.

However, parents must now consider the new penalty notice changes detailed further below which could lead to greater consequences and legal action being taken against them.

Suspected Holiday Absence

Please be truthful about the reason why your child is absent. It is important we have an open and honest relationship between the school and our parents and children. We are here to support you and your family and ensure your children get the best out of their education.   

Where we believe a holiday has been taken, the school will investigate, and we may ask for medical evidence to support a sickness claim. We will also look at the child’s attendance history to identify patterns, we will monitor sibling’s attendance including if they attend a different school and we may check your social media.  We will also consider what has been said by your child in class to the teacher or friends about the absence.  

The school will also look at illness's taken before and at the end of each term. 

If the school is not satisfied about the authenticity of the illness, the absence will be recorded as unauthorised and a fine may be pursued if it meets the threshold. 

If you are questioned about an absence, we kindly remind you that it is our staff's legal duty to challenge and investigate absences and we have ZERO tolerance for abuse towards our staff, either verbally, physically or via messages. 

The new framework increases the amount of the penalty notice and introduces a new national limit of 2 penalty notices within a 3-year rolling period to break cycles of repeat offending. 

Penalty notices are issued by the Local authority at the following rates:

·         First Offence – The first time a penalty notice is issued, the cost will be £80 per parent, per child if paid within 21 days.  This will increase to £160 per parent, per child if the fine is paid after 21 days until day 28. Any non-payment of the penalty may be referred to the Magistrates Court.

·         Second Offence (within 3 years) – the second time a penalty notice is issued the cost to pay will be £160 per parent, per child within 28 days with no reduction for earlier payment.

·        Third Offence and Any Further Offences within 3 years – The third time an offence is committed a penalty notice will not be pursued but the case may be presented straight to the Magistrates Court under section 444 of the Education Act (1996) or other legal interventions may be considered. The Magistrates’ Court can order fines up to £2500 per parent, per child.

The New Threshold for Issuing Penalty Notices for Unauthorised Absences

Penalty notices can be requested by schools when there have been 10 sessions (5 days) of unauthorised absence within a 10-week period.  However, if in an individual case the local authority believes a penalty notice would be appropriate, they retain the discretion to issue a fine before the threshold is met. This reflects the seriousness of unauthorised absence from school.

An example of this would be where parents are deliberately avoiding the national threshold by taking several term time holidays below the threshold, or for repeated absences for birthdays, family events etc.

As a reminder, if your child is absent from school due to sickness or a medical appointment, you must notify the school office before 9am. To avoid the absence being classed as unauthorised, medical evidence will be requested by the school office. 

It is policy that medical appointments should be taken outside of school time but we appreciate that it is often very difficult to get appointments. Therefore, please ensure that you can provide either medical evidence or proof of the appointment to the school office should you need to take your child out of school for this reason.

Please see below the following links for any further information about Penalty Notices:

• The NCC Code of Conduct for Penalty Notices
• Frequently Asked Questions

We understand that all children will have days when they are not able to go to school due to illness. Children with mild illness should attend school such as if they have a cough, or a cold without a temperature.  We remind parents/carers that they should not be giving Calpol or paracatemol to 'keep their child going'.  If your child is genuinly too unwell, please do not send them to school. 

If children have experienced vomiting or diarrhea, then they must remain off school until they are clear for 48 hours. The same rule applies if the child has a medical reason for vomiting. 

We advise parents to refer to the NHS guide when deciding to keep their children at home for illness: https://www.nhs.uk/live-well/is-my-child-too-ill-for-school/.    

Please remember that parents/carers have a legal duty to notify the school of an absence. Please be clear about the reasons and symptoms ('they're not 100%' or 'feeling under the weather' are not acceptable explanations). 

If the school does not receive a reason or response to communication, the absence will be unauthorised and a penalty notice may be pursued. 

Medication

Providing medication to children is a service that schools are not obliged to undertake however, we appreciate that it is can be difficult to effectively adminster medication without the schools help.  If your child requires medicaton (including epipens and inhalers), we ask that parents complete a medical form.

The school will not administer any medication (unless it is life saving) unless a medical form has been completed by an adult with parental responsibility (grandparents etc. cannot complete the form to give consent).  A form can be completed at the school office or can be requested via the school app. 

For long-term medication, it is the parents/carers responsibility to monitor the expiry date of all medication and to provide the school with replacement medication if needed.  Parents/carers must dispose of medication at the end of treatment.  

Whilst the school undertakes to see that your child receives the correct dose of medication at the right time, no member of staff can be held responsible if it is inadvertently forgotten.