Attendance
Absence at Sandfield Close Primary School
Sandfield Close Primary School is a good school and we expect all of our children to attend school every day. This will support their well-being, progress and learning. For our children to gain the greatest benefit from their education, it is vital they attend regularly and your child should be at school, on time, every day the school is open unless the reason for the absence is unavoidable.
As a school we work closely with the Educational Welfare Service to support regular school attendance. Please see below a table provided by the Education Welfare Service that visually shows the impact on a child’s chances of school success if they are absent.
Absence from one day in school means a child misses developing important relationships with friends and approximately 4 learning lessons of learning a day. This causes difficulties for a child to catch up on lessons that have been missed and subsequently learning gaps appear in different subjects.
The table below shows the number of days missed and the implications this has on the amount of learning lessons missed.
|
Attendance during one school year |
Equal days absent |
Which is approximately this many weeks absent |
Which means this number of learning lessons missed |
|
95% |
10 days |
2 weeks |
40 lessons |
|
90% |
19 days |
4 weeks |
80 lessons |
|
85% |
29 days |
6 weeks |
120 lessons |
|
80% |
38 days |
8 weeks |
160 lessons |
|
75% |
48 days |
10 weeks |
200 lessons |
|
70% |
57 days |
11.5 weeks |
230 lessons |
|
65% |
67 days |
13.5 weeks |
270 lessons |
As the tables above show, any absence (including lateness) affects the pattern of a child’s schooling and regular absence will seriously affect their learning. Ensuring your child’s regular attendance is legal responsibility of parents or carers and permitting absence from school without good reason is an offence in law.
“If your child is not is school you may be issued with a
Fixed Penalty Notice (the penalty is £120 per parent per
child) or prosecuted by the Local Authority in the
Magistrates’ Court and fined up to £1,000.”
(Leicester City Council, School Attendance, Education Welfare Service)
How we can all help to ensure regular attendance
Helping to create a pattern of regular attendance is the responsibility of parents or carers, children and all members of school staff.
To help us focus on attendance we will:
Provide reports 3 times a year about how a child is performing in school, what their attendance and punctuality is and their current attainment;
Celebrate good attendance by rewarding children with 100%. Children are given a book voucher and a certificate to celebrate their regular attendance;
Reward good or improving attendance through outings, events or golden time.