Attendance, Appointments and Absence
It is important that children attend school regularly and on time. At Western Primary School, we believe that excellent attendance leads to excellent achievement in both curriculum progress and also social and emotional development.
We want all of our children to succeed in all areas of the curriculum and within their personal development and for this they need to be in school regularly. Irregular attendance makes it harder for children to keep up with their learning and to build and sustain relationships with their friends. It is essential that children arrive at school on time, as late arrival disrupts their learning and may mean they miss important information about their learning and the main teaching input for their first session of the day.
Pupils with good attendance will become successful and confident learners and will establish good routines which will prepare them for adult life.
Our school aims to meet its obligations with regards to school attendance by:
- Promoting good attendance and reducing absence, including persistent absence
- Ensuring every pupil has access to the full-time education to which they are entitled
- Acting early to address patterns of absence
In line with our school vision, we will also support parents to perform their legal duty to ensure their children of compulsory school age, have and maintain, high attendance rates (95%+) and will promote and support punctuality in attending lessons.
Parental/carer support is key to helping children achieve high standards of attendance. We appreciate our parents/ carers who promote good habits of punctuality and attendance. If you are struggling with attendance, our Attendance Team would be happy to support and advise where we can. Please contact us if you are having difficulties getting your child to school or with any issues around attendance.
Contact the Attendance Team
Reporting a child’s absence
If your child is unwell and will be absent from school, please inform the office by 9.15am either by popping in or phoning the school and selecting option 1 to leave a message.
If your child suffers from sickness or diarrhoea, they must be kept off school for 48 hours from the time of their last episode of sickness/diarrhoea. This timescale has been set by North Yorkshire Council to help prevent the spread to other children in school.
If your child is absent and we do not hear from you, we have a duty of care to call each of your emergency contacts until we are able to establish that your child is safe, and know the cause for their absence.
If your child is off for more than one day, please make sure that you let us know each morning that they won't be in school, to avoid us having to call you to find out how they are.
If your child is frequently ill, the school may need to get medical evidence from the child's doctor to prove their absence is genuine (there are special considerations for pupils with diagnosed medical conditions or on medical leave).
Thank you for your support and cooperation in helping to keep our pupils safe.
Appointments
If your child needs a medical appointment, we would appreciate it if you could try to arrange for a time outside of school hours. However, we understand that this is sometimes unavoidable. We would like to draw your attention to the fact that legally, if your child’s appointment is mid- session, they must be brought for registration first and then signed out for the appointment. If you need to take your child out of school, please complete a Pupil Leave of Absence for Appointment form
Leave Requests in Exceptional Circumstances
Taking children out of school is not recommended. However, if there are exceptional circumstances, you need to apply for your child to be absent from school during term time. Please complete the appropriate form, giving as much notice as possible and preferably at least 6 weeks. Please note that there are strict guidelines that are detailed on the back of the form.
Note that a holiday is not considered an exceptional circumstance and will always be unauthorised. Parents may also receive a penalty notice from the Local Authority.
Is my child too ill for school?
It can be tricky deciding whether or not to keep your child off school when they're unwell. Please check the NHS guidelines for advice and support.
