Egerton Primary School
Attendance
Promoting and Supporting Attendance
Our attendance leads are:
Caroline Lowe - Headteacher
Elizabeth Broadbent - Senior Lead
At Egerton Primary School, we believe in developing good patterns of attendance and set high expectations for the attendance and punctuality for all our pupils from the outset. It is a central part of our school’s vision, values, ethos, and day to day life.
We recognise connections between attendance, attainment, safeguarding and wellbeing. Creating a pattern of regular attendance is the responsibility of parents, pupils and all members of school staff.
In September 2022 The Government created new guidance 'Working together to improve school attendance'. Please find our Policy below which details our intent for attendance, how we implement this and day to day procedures.
Our aim is always to work in partnerships with our families, to listen, be supportive and plan together.
The name and contact details of the school staff member pupils and parents should contact about attendance on a day-to-day basis is:
Jess Healey. Telephone 01565 213127
We monitor all absence, and the reasons that are given, thoroughly.
If a child is absent from school the parent must follow these procedures:
- Contact the school on the first day of absence before 9.30 am.The school has an answer phone available to leave a message if nobody is available to take your call, or you may call into school personally and speak to the office staff
- Please keep in touch with the school with subsequent days’ absence and updates
- Ensure that your child returns to school as soon as possible and you provide any medical evidence, if requested, to support the absence
If your child is absent, we will:
- It is your responsibility to contact us. If we do not hear from you by 9.30am we will telephone or text you on the first, and every subsequent day of absence.
- If we are unable to contact parents by telephone, we will telephone emergency contact numbers, send letters home and a home visit may be made in the interests of safeguarding
- A referral will be made to Local Authority if no contact has been made with parents by the 10th day of absence (or sooner if deemed appropriate), at which point your child will be “Missing from education.”
If absence continues, we will:
- Contact you if your child’s attendance is below 95%, or where punctuality is a concern
- Contact you/Write to you if your child’s attendance is below 90% or where punctuality is a concern
- Build positive relationships, discussions with families – how can we help? Specific support.
- Provide pastoral/wellbeing support where required.
- Develop support for pupils with medical conditions, special educational needs and disabilities,
- Create a personalised action/support plan/identify any barriers to attendance
- Offer signposting support to other agencies or services if appropriate
- Refer the matter to the Local Authority for relevant sanctions if attendance deteriorates following the above actions
School Attendance and the Law
The law entitles every child of compulsory school age to an efficient, full-time education suitable to their age, aptitude, and any special educational need they may have. It is the legal responsibility of every parent to make sure their child receives that education either by attendance at a school or by education otherwise than at a school.
Where parents decide to have their child registered at school, they have an additional legal duty to ensure their child attends that school regularly. This means their child must attend every day that the school is open, except in a small number of allowable circumstances such as being too ill to attend or being given permission for an absence in advance from the school.
Impact
This is essential for pupils to get the most out of their school experience, including their attainment, wellbeing, and wider life chances. The pupils with the highest attainment at the end of key stage 2 and key stage 4 have higher rates of attendance over the key stage compared to those with the lowest attainment. (See Appendix B).