Attendance and Punctuality

Pupils must attend every day, unless there are exceptional circumstances.

We’re grateful to families for sharing our goal for all pupils to be in school and on time every day. 

Our school attendance target is 97%. To help us achieve this, we will: 

• share details about attendance in our newsletters with families
• meet with families should their child’s attendance fall below the school’s target for attendance.

In order to maintain attendance above 95%, children must accumulate less than 9.5 days’ absence in the academic year.

|If a child is going to be absent from school, you, must:

• Contact the School Office via email (office@upsnodsfirst.worcs.sch.uk) or by telephone 01905 381288
• Provide a reason for absence
• Indicate when the child will return to school

The headteacher may authorise an absence for a morning or afternoon away from school for a reason such as genuine illness, medical or dental appointments which unavoidably fall in school time or emergencies. We may request medical evidence from you to support the absence if appropriate. 

The Headteacher will not authorise absences due to:

• holidays,  
• a late night,  
• non-infectious illness or injury that would not affect a child’s ability to learn, 
• their own or family birthdays,  
• being late (after registration closes at 9:15am),  
• day trips,  
• looking after other children,  
• accompanying siblings or parents to medical appointments. 

What to do if you're late:

School gate open:  8.30am

School gate close:  8.40am

If you arrive after 8.40am and the gate is closed, you will need to come through the school office reception and be registered into school.

If your child is absent and we haven't hear from  you by 9am, we will:  

• Telephone or text you. 
• If you don’t answer your phone, we will phone your emergency contact numbers. 
• If we still can’t reach you, we will come to your home address for safeguarding reasons. 

If absence continues, we will 

• Write to you if your child’s attendance is below 95%, or when punctuality is a concern. 
• Invite you into school to discuss the situation with the Headteacher. 
• Create a personalised action/support plan to address any barriers to attendance. 
• Offer signposting support to other agencies or services if appropriate. 
• A referral will be made to Local Authority if no contact has been made with parents by the 10^th day of absence (or sooner if deemed appropriate), at which point your child will be “missing from education.”  

By law all children of compulsory school age must receive an appropriate full-time education (Education Act 1996).  Parents have a legal duty to ensure their child attends school regularly at the school at which they are registered.  

What are exceptional circumstances?

Families are permitted to request a ‘Leave of Absence’ due to exceptional circumstances. 

Only the headteacher may authorise such a request and all applications for a leave of absence must be made in writing using the prescribed form. The Leave of Absence form can be obtained from the school office. If a parent removes a child when the application for leave was refused, or when no application was made to the school, a penalty notice may be requested by the school. 

Exceptional circumstances carry unique and significant emotional, educational, or spiritual value to the child, which outweigh the loss of teaching time (as determined by the headteacher). The fundamental principles for defining ‘exceptional’ are events that are “rare, significant, unavoidable and short”. By ‘unavoidable’, we mean an event that could not reasonably be scheduled at another time, outside of school term time. 

We will not consider applications for leave: 

• at any time in September. This is very important as your child needs to settle into their new class at the start of the academic year as quickly as possible. 
• During assessment and test periods in the school’s calendar affecting your child,   
• when a pupil’s attendance record already includes any level of unauthorised absence or they have already been granted authorised leave within that academic year.  

If leave of absence is authorised, the school will not provide work for children to do during their absence.  Parents are encouraged to continue reading with their children daily and encourage them to write a diary while they are away. 

Is my child too ill for school?

If you’re concerned your child might be feeling too unwell for school, we encourage you to bring them in and we will monitor their wellness during the day. The school office will ring you if they need to come home.  

The NHS offers advice on childhood illnesses and whether they can come to school. Visit: https://www.nhs.uk/live-well/is-my-child-too-ill-for-school/

The school will only administer medicines when absolutely necessary decided on an individual basis.

If a parent/carer feels it is necessary for a child to receive medication (such as Calpol) during the school day, the parent/carer is always welcome to come into school to administer the dosage.