Attendance and Punctuality
Attendance and Absence Myth Busters document. Click here to find out more.
Don’t miss a moment of the greatest years of your life!
Regular attendance at school is vital in helping children and young people to achieve their full potential and get the best possible start in life.
At Bolton Brow Primary Academy we know that regular attendance is directly linked to raising achievement and develops skills for life and work. Please support the school in this by ensuring that your child attends school regularly and arrives ready to learn and on time at 8.45 am.
Being 20 minutes late every day means you miss 100 minutes of learning every week. Multiply this by 39 weeks a year = 3900 minutes missed a year. Basically this is 65 hours missed a year!
Understanding types of absence
Every ½ day absence from school, by law, has to be classified as either authorised or unauthorised. This is why information about the cause of absence is always asked for.
Authorised absences are mornings or afternoons away from school for a good reason such as illness, medical appointments and emergencies.
An absence is classified as Unauthorised, if the reason was not recognised as acceptable. The Department for Education (DfE) and Local Education Authorities provide information for schools as what is acceptable and what is not.
Examples of reasons that would not be accepted:
A birthday
A shopping trip
Day trips
Holidays – unless have been agreed as exceptional circumstances
What should I do if my child is absent from school?
Contact the school office on the first morning before and notify us of the absence and provide a reason.
School will phone you if we don’t hear from you.
Punctuality
It is very important that all children arrive on time. If your child arrives late, they will not be able to come into school via usual morning entrance doors but should instead come through the main school entrance. We will then be able to mark registers and ensure your child is marked for a school dinner.
Please note that if your children arrives at school later than 9:30, we are required to mark them as absent for that half day session.
If children are regularly late, a parent will be expected to attend a meeting to look at how punctuality can be improved.
Promoting Attendance and Support
We believe that working together with parents is the best way to result in positive attendance outcomes for our children.
We have lots of high profile rewards and systems in school to promote good attendance and punctuality with the children.
Certificates and prizes are given termly in recognition of good attendance and improved attendance.
Our Head of Safeguarding, Mr P Kelesidis, and the deputy safeguarding leads, Miss C Wardle and Mrs C Wheale, are happy to work with both children and families to improve attendance and punctuality. Come and talk to us if you are having problems.
Attendance Monitoring
As attendance and punctuality is so important to us, we cannot be complacent where there are instances of unacceptable, low pupil attendance, or if pupils are regularly late to school.
As a school within Calderdale, we adopt measures and involve external agencies if the level of attendance requires us to do so. A computer generates reports termly and letters are sent to ALL parents where attendance is below 90%.
Remember regular attendance at school is vital in helping children and young people to achieve their full potential and get the best possible start in life.