Illness

When your child is unwell you should inform the School Office before 8:45am on 01278 422693 and selecting

option 1.   Leave your child's name and reason for absence.

Sickness and Diarrhea 

Our policy is 48 Hours absence after the last occurrence of sickness or diarrhea.  It is in important that you keep your child away from School for this period to stop passing on infections.  

Attendance

As part of our commitment to improving the attainment of our pupils we monitor attendance on a regular basis and identify any pupil whose attendance causes concern. Children are required to maintain an attendance of 97% and above, for those children who fall below this level the school will start to follow the school monitoring attendance procedure. The school attendance daily checklist and monitoring procedure is detailed below, alongside the current school attendance policy.



Term Time Leave

Term time leave must be requested in writing to the school at least 20 school days in advance of the leave via a term time leave request form. Only requests with exceptional circumstances will be considered and children with poor attendance will no have requests approved. Those parents who take their children out of school without prior consent put themselves at risk of receiving a penalty notice.

Daily Attendance and Monitoring Procedures 

Morning

• The School day starts at 8:45am.  Pupils who arrive after this time will be marked as late.  Pupils who arrive after 9:10am will have a unathorised late mark which will affect their attendance.
• 9:55am morning registers close and paper registers returned to the office for input on registers.
• Daily attendance report printed to identify any unexplained/missing marks for the day.
• Registers updated by Attendance Officer with marks from late arrival and absent sheet in reception
• Visit to classrooms to see if children with unexplained/missing absence have arrived
• Phone call made to parents of absent children to ascertain reason for absence
• Marks updated on (SIM’s)

Afternoon

• 1:10pm registers close
• Paper registers are added to SIM’s

Fortnightly

School Attendance Officer and Head Teacher meet to monitor and discuss children with under 97% attendance. Decisions are made on letters to be sent home, which parents need to meet with the head and who needs to be referred to the Somerset County Council Educational Safeguarding Welfare  Officer.

Attendance concern letters and meeting procedure as follows:

1. Letter 1 – first letter to inform parent of child’s current attendance
2. Letter 2 – second letter after attendance has not improved from first letter
3. Medical letter – letter to ask parents to provide medical evidence for child’s absences following repeated letters and absences related to illness
4. School attendance meeting – parents contacted and asked to attend a meeting with the head teacher, following continued low attendance
5. Somerset County Council Educational Safeguarding Welfare Officer referral is then sent if no improvements are made; penalty notices can then be considered at this stage

Unexplained absences:

• Unexplained absences monitored by the school attendance officer.  These absences will be marked as unauthorised if no reason is provided. 

Late letters:

• Late marks monitored and letters sent to those parents of children who are regularly late