Attendance
At Oldbrook First School and Nursery, we recognise the importance of regular school attendance and believe that children can only learn effectively if they attend school regularly. It is also vitally important that children arrive and leave school on time.
Education provides a means of enhancement for all young people. Pupils need to attend regularly if they are to take full advantage of the educational opportunities available to them. Irregular attendance seriously disrupts continuity of learning, undermines the educational process and leads to underachievement and low attainment.
Please see our Attendance Policy for more detailed information.
Communication with Pupils
At Oldbrook we believe that children need to develop an awareness of the importance of good attendance and punctuality. Attendance is celebrated regularly in the following ways to support this:
- Weekly Attendance awarded to the class with the highest attendance.
- Attendance display in the school hall to celebrate achievements.
- Certificates awarded to children who achieve an excellent level of attendance.
- Parentmail identifies the class and individual children’s achievements each term.
Responsibilities of Parents
There are legal obligations on parents to secure education for their children of compulsory school age, whether at school or otherwise, and to send them to school regularly once they are on the school roll.
If the school is to achieve its attendance targets, parents must see themselves as partners with the school in their children's education, and support the school in the following ways:
- ensure the fullest possible attendance of their child by keeping requests for their children to be absent from school to a minimum;
- when absence is unavoidable, provide a note of explanation, preferably on the first day of absence or when the child returns to school or contact the school by telephone
- when absence continues for more than a day, contact the school by ‘phone or via Parentmail absence reporting;
- ensure that their child arrives at school on time.
Notification of Absence
All parents are asked to contact school if their child is absent, giving a reason for the absence. This can be done by:
- Telephone: the School Business Manager / Administrator will then pass the message to the class teacher and enter the reason for absence directly onto the computer;
- Parentmail: an explanation may be given using the app on the attendance section.
- In person: an explanation may be given personally to either the class teacher or the School Business Manager / Administrator when the child returns to school.
If no notification is received about a child’s absence, the computer will generate a letter to be sent to parents.
School Responses to Absence
Authorised and Unauthorised Absence
Where a child is absent at the time of registration, the law requires schools to indicate on their attendance register whether the absence is authorised or unauthorised.
Authorised absence means that the school has either given approval in advance for the child to be away or that an explanation offered afterwards has been accepted. The law requires that absences not agreed in advance are recorded as unauthorised, unless (and until) a satisfactory explanation is given.
The school will:
- investigate all unexplained absences;
- contact parents on the first day of absence for an explanation if no message is received.
- contact parents if it has any concerns over attendance;
- involve the Senior Attendance Officer if parents fail to support the school in ensuring the fullest possible attendance of their children (Attendance below 90%).
- withdraw a Nursery place if attendance falls below the minimum requirement.
By law, only the school can approve absence, not parents. The school need not accept a parental explanation for a child's absence if it doubts the explanation. If the school is satisfied that the circumstances are both genuine and exceptional, the absence may be authorised. Where parentally condoned and/or unjustified absence appears to be a problem, the school will involve the S.A.O. at the earliest opportunity and issue sanctions in accordance with Milton Keynes policy.
Excessive amounts of authorised absence can disrupt continuity of learning. The school will, therefore, watch for emerging patterns of authorised absence by individual children.
Examples of Unauthorised Absence
The school cannot accept any of the following:
- Shopping during school hours;
- Special occasions, e.g. birthdays; visiting family
- No uniform, shoes, etc.;
- Overslept;
- Haircut;
- Sham illnesses;
- At home due to family illness.
- Children arriving at school after the register has closed (Arriving after 9:30)
- Family Holidays
- Routine dental appointments
Persistent Absence
Where a child has 10 unauthorised sessions in 10 school weeks, the school will send a Notice to Improve, this will warn you that they will refer the matter to the Local Authority for the issue of a Penalty Notice. The Penalty Notice will be issued after 6 school weeks if there is no improvement although a Penalty Notice can be issued after 3 weeks if there has been in sufficient improvement. During the 10 and/or 6-week period the schools will have a “Support First” approach. This means the Headteacher will meet with you and drawn up an Attendance Contract and allow you the chance to explain what you perceive are the barriers to attendance. The Attendance Meeting, where such a contract is drawn up, should be a discussion by all parties about the best ways to resolve your child’s attendance and should be supportive. The school will make a referral to Early Help and investigate the reasons for the poor attendance prior to issue of a Notice to Improve. If no support has been provided it may not be appropriate to issue a Notice to Improve, however, if support has been offered and not taken up or there has been poor engagement then a Notice will be issued. Each case will be viewed on a case-by-case bases, but the Penalty Notice will only be issued where it is likely to be an “improvement tool”. In addition, the Department for Education has introduced an “escalation process” which is explained below.
Severely Absent or Historic Poor Attenders
There is now a new category of Severely Absent (50% attendance or below). In these cases, the DfE expect multi-agency meetings to take place to resolve the barriers to school attendance. Where there is no improvement or a lack of engagement then the school can decide not to issue the Notice to Improve (because a Notice will not be seen as an “improvement tool”) and will, instead, send a warning letter and then, if there is still no improvement refer for the Local Authority for a PACE interview as a precursor to prosecution. The school may also choose this pathway if there is historic poor attendance, siblings with poor attendance or there have been previous prosecutions.
Leaver During Term Time
- Headteachers are no longer allowed to authorise requests for children to be taken out of school in term time. If you take leave which is not authorised by the school then the matter will be referred to the Local Authority who will consider the issue of a Fixed Penalty Notice. Oldbrook First School and Nursery follows the Local Authorities guidance.
- If Parents/Carers take children out of school, which results in the child missing 10 or more sessions, (5 school days) a referral will be sent to the Local Authority (Appendix 1). Fixed Penalty Notices (FPN) are issued to each parent and are for each child. A FPN is £80 if paid within 21 days, and £160 if paid between 22 and 28 days. If the fine is not paid, parents will be prosecuted in the magistrates’ court and could receive a fine of up to £1000 (per parent) and a criminal record. Fines can now be issued if there are 10 unauthorised sessions in 10 school weeks.
- If a second period of leave is taken within 3 years (same parent/child) then the fine will start at £160 payable in 28 days. If there is a third offence in 3 years (same parent/child) then the matter will be prosecuted in the magistrate’s court.
- The school will follow the guidance as set out in the ‘School Attendance Enforcement Policy in relation to non-school attendance and Code of Conduct for the issue of Fixed Penalty Notices’. Further information can be found here.