Westonzoyland Primary School ‘Achieving, Learning and Growing Together’
Attendance
Attendance Information for Parents:
Attendance is a priority concern in our duty to ‘safeguard’ children.
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 full-time education to which they are entitled
- Acting early to address patterns of absence
- Supporting parents to perform their legal duty to ensure their children of compulsory school age attend regularly
- Promoting punctuality in attending school.
Students are expected to maintain a minimum 97% attendance throughout the school year.
Registration and Lateness
Registration begins at 8:40am, and students arriving after this time will be marked as present but arriving late (L code). The register will close at 9.00am and students arriving after the close of register will be recorded as late (U code).
Parents must advise the school by telephone on the first day of absence and provide the school with an explanation and an expected date of return. This call should be made by 9:00am. A message can be left on the answering machine if the phone is not answered. If the absence is more than 2 days in duration, then parents should contact the school again to keep them updates about the student’s welfare and provide an expected date of return.
Authorised and Unauthorised Absence
The Education Regulations 2013, which became law on 1st September 2013, state that Headteachers may not grant any leave of absence during term time unless there are exceptional circumstances. This rarely, if ever encompasses family holidays.
Parents who need to take their child out of school during term time due to exceptional circumstances must send a written request to the Headteacher. Retrospective requests will not be considered. All requests for leave of absence will be responded to in writing outlining the conditions of leave granted.
If the permission to take leave is not granted and the parent takes their child out of school the absence will be unauthorised. In such cases the school may request the local authority issue a Penalty Notice or consider other legal sanctions including prosecution in the magistrates court.
For further details please see our full Attendance and Punctuality Policy below.