Regular and punctual attendance at school is both a legal requirement and essential for children and young people to maximise their educational opportunities. The expectation is that every child should be in school, every day, unless they are unwell. It is taken into account that children are likely to be unwell at some point during the school year and as a result the attendance expectation here at Castle Primary is set at 96%.
Castle Primary is committed to ensuring the best possible outcomes for all our pupils. To help ensure this, if your child’s attendance shows a decrease towards the school’s expectation of 96%, you will be notified and we will aim to work with you to ensure that any issues are resolved as quickly as possible. If your child’s attendance drops below 90%, they will be considered ‘persistently absent’ and will be raised as a concern with the Education Welfare Service. In this instance, the Education Welfare Service would aim to work with you to improve your child’s attendance. However if this proved unsuccessful, legal action would be considered.
The table below shows the impact of whole days absent and lost learning hours in one school year:
The Department for Education say there is clear evidence of a link between poor attendance at school and low levels of achievement.
Being late to school can have a considerable impact over the whole school year. The table below shows you just how much time can be missed over a year just by being five minutes late to school every day:
5 minutes late every day = 3 days of school lost a year
10 minutes late every day = 6.5 days of school lost a year
15 minutes late every day = 10 days of school lost a year
20 minutes late every day = 13 days of school lost a year
30 minutes late every day = 19 days of school lost a year
We understand school mornings can be hectic, but when your child is late for school, they are missing out on vital parts of their education.
Should you have any questions regarding attendance or you would like to discuss how we may support you in ensuring your child attends school regularly, please contact the school office for an appointment with the Head of School.
If your child is absent from school you have a duty to telephone the school office by 8.45am on each day of absence and provide a reason. An answer phone facility is available for you to leave a message.
In the event of no telephone contact, the school office will make a telephone call to the contact numbers on file. If we are unable to make contact, the school will follow an absent pupil procedure which involves us undertaking several steps to ensure ourselves of the safe whereabouts of the pupil. This is part of our safeguarding commitment.
If a child has been absent from school on a number of separate occasions, we may write to you or seek to speak with you to notify you that their overall attendance percentage is decreasing. This is not to be seen as a negative communication, but rather a way of us keeping you informed of what our data is telling us and a reminder that should you or your child have any concerns around attending school, you are welcome to come in and discuss this with us. We will always try to help wherever we can.
Our letter process starts by advising of a reduced level of attendance. However, if further absence is incurred, you may receive a second letter which invites you into the school for a discussion.
Genuine illness is marked as authorised absence however where it is identified that a child has incurred many absences which are all illness-related, we may write to you to advise that further absences will need to be evidenced, or that we require extra information regarding the illness to enable us to continue authorising the absences.
We will always aim to work with parents to resolve any attendance difficulties however where we have undertaken many unsuccessful attempts, if attendance is considered an issue, in the interests of our pupils, we will seek the involvement of the Education Welfare Service (EWS). Our attendance policy lists the actions that EWS may take to ensure good attendance.
Leave during term-time is strongly discouraged due to the inevitable disruption caused to the educational progress of individual pupils and school staff.
In the exceptional cases where a decision is made to authorise leave during term-time, parents/carers are reminded that this is a only for the period in question at the time and so it should not be assumed that authorisation will be granted for any future request.
Where a period of unauthorised term time leave is taken, whether this has been requested or not, please note that you may be at risk of a £60 per child, per parent fine from Somerset Council. Further details of the prosecution process are available on the council website:
Somerset Council – Attendance and Missing Education
Similarly, where a child accrues unauthorised absences equating to 10 or more sessions in a 12-week period, a warning penalty notice request may be made to Somerset Council. Further details may be found in our attendance policy.
Schools in our trust promote good attendance in a variety of different ways which may include the issuing of certificates at half-termly and yearly intervals, stickers, celebratory assemblies, a non-uniform day or a week’s care of the school mascot for the class with the best attendance.
Please phone the school on 01935 822342 before 8.45am to let us know if your child is ill. In the mornings before school you will be able to leave a message explaining why your child is not in school. If a child has been sick we request that they remain off school for 48 hours to ensure they are fully recovered. If your child has a contagious illness such as chicken pox, slap cheek or measles, please let us know as soon as possible. If a child has certain illnesses that require them to remain away from school, your doctor should be able to advise you, however if you are unsure please contact reception and we will refer to the advice we receive form the Health Authority.
If a child has an ongoing medical issue such as diabetes or asthma the school works with the relevant health professionals and parents to ensure medication is available and accessed during the school day and that trained staff are on hand if required.
If your child requires medication during the school day please speak to your class teachers, who will arrange for the necessary paperwork to be completed with you. We would however request that when completing a course of medication that you arrange, where possible, to ask the GP for a three-dose antibiotic, for example, which can be administered before and after school. No pupil should bring medication into school to self administer without the knowledge of the child’s teacher.
Pupils are not allowed to take holiday in term time unless there are exceptional circumstances. It is very rare that any holiday would be authorised. Good attendance is key to pupils making good progress and taking time out to go on holiday can significantly hamper progress. Therefore, we request that no child takes holiday during term time.
Five consecutive days or more of absence from school may lead to a fine being issued by Somerset Council education welfare officers.
There may be occasions where a pupil needs to attend a hospital appointment. Generally, if these are booked in advance, you can request an appointment which does not interfere with the school day. We would request that dentist and doctor’s appointments are also booked out of the school day unless they are emergency appointments. The school will not authorise time taken out for appointments which need not take place during the school day.
We cannot also authorise pupils to be out of school if another family member has an appointment. We offer before and after school care facilities if you need assistance with childcare in these circumstances.
A school day is made up of two sessions, the morning session and the afternoon session. As an example, five schools days equates to 10 sessions.
Please contact the school office and either leave a message on the dedicated answer machine (prior to the school day) or you may speak to the receptionist during the school day.
No. As advised above, any communication of this kind received from the school is intended to keep you updated with your child’s attendance level and, where there appears to be an increase in absences, to see what we can do to help you and your child to ensure they are coming into school regularly. We ask that parents do their best to work with us so that any issues can be resolved as quickly as possible without the need to make referrals to the EWS.
Parents/carers have a duty to ensure that their child of statutory school age is receiving an appropriate education. If your child is not wishing to come to school then we need to know so that we can look into the reason(s) for this and work out what we can do to help.
