If your child is unwell

When a child is ill a parent/carer must telephone the school on the first morning of absence. Ask to be put through to the Absence Line or select this option from the switchboard automated service. Please leave details of child's name, Tutor Group and reason for absence.

On the child's return to school the child should bring a note from the parent/carer informing the tutor of the reason for absence. This may be written in the child's Homework Diary.

If no written explanation is received the absence is counted as an unauthorised absence. This leads to inaccuracies in our attendance records and incorrect information being passed to the Educational Welfare Officer.

If your child has an appointment

We understand that occasionally appointments for doctors, dentists and hospitals have to take place during school time. If this happens it is important your son/daughter brings a note to that effect into school, prior to the appointment. He or she must sign out at Student Reception before leaving and sign in again on return to school. We would expect a child to only miss am or pm registration and not take a whole day off except for agreed exceptional circumstances.

Monitoring attendance

We operate a system of 'First day Calling'. On most days a member of staff telephones the home of every student who has been marked absent during that particular session. The purpose of this is to follow up absences and detect any problems as early as possible. Occasionally parents may receive a call even though an absence note has been sent to school. This is because of the time lapse that sometimes occurs between sending the note to school and the registering of the note by the member of staff calling home. Your support for this system is appreciated.

We are unable to allow students to leave the school premises during the day unless this has been authorised in writing by a parent/carer.

Unauthorised Absences

We would point out that as a school we have deciced to implement fines if a child has 10 or more absences during 100 sessions, which could result in a fine of upto £100 - refer to Section 444(1) of the Education Act 1996.

Holidays during Term

National School Attendance Regulations allow the Headteacher to authorise a student's leave of absence from school to accompany parents on an annual family holiday or approved visit when a satisfactory record of attendance indicates that the lasting effect on the student's education will be negligible. This should not normally exceed two weeks in any year. Holidays will not be authorised during the following times or for the following reasons except in very exceptional circumstances:

If a holiday is not agreed by the Headteacher this will be marked as unauthorised and could result in a fine of upto £100 - refer to Section 444(1) of the Education Act 1996.