Our Attendance Champion:
Attendance Officer
Mrs. H. Taylor
Helen.taylor@sws.cheshire.sch.uk
At Sir William Stanier, improving school attendance is everyone’s business. There is a well-established link between attendance and academic achievement. Low or irregular attendance has a negative effect on students’ academic performance, mental wellbeing and resilience. When students miss school, they miss crucial building blocks of knowledge.
Our commitment to promoting good attendance involves continuous monitoring by staff, communication with parents, and proactive measures to prevent further absences. Our goal for all students is 100% attendance and punctuality, with a minimum expectation of 95% throughout the academic year.
Parents have a legal obligation to send their children to school, but there’s a risk that students get caught in a cycle of absence and therefore may struggle to catch up. We are diligently addressing attendance challenges arising from the pandemic. The government’s national campaign emphasises the value of each school day and encourages positive communication between parents, carers, and the school.
To empower parents, we provide accessible online resources and guidance. Our staff are always available to assist students in catching up or understanding missed material. The ‘attendance triangle’ illustrates when attendance becomes problematic and outlines the support available to students facing ongoing absences.
Please read through our Attendance Booklet for Parents:
Attendance Booklet
Reporting Absence
We expect our parents to do the following:
- Ensure your child attends every day, on time, equipped and ready to learn. Lesson time begins at 8.35am and students should be in the building by 8.30am. Students arriving after 8.30am will be marked late and will be given a late detention regardless of reason.
- Ensure the school has up-to-date addresses and telephone numbers. We will contact you if your child is absent and you have not contacted the office. This ensures that the absence is quickly identified.
- If your child is ill, contact school on the first day of absence. If no contact is received regarding the absence, it is recorded as un-authorised.
If your child is unable to attend school, it is essential that you contact the school as soon as possible through either of the methods below:
In Person
Main Reception
By Phone
01270 660880 option 2
By Email
Via the messaging service on the Edulink app
- Ensure that medical appointments are made outside of the school day where possible.
- Avoid trivial absences such as, ‘buying new shoes’ or ‘birthday celebrations’. This would not be accepted as a reasonable absence.
- Holidays should not be taken in school time. Any Leave of Absence can only be agreed by the Headteacher and only authorised where there are exceptional circumstances.
- Respond to letters or telephone calls regarding attendance and punctuality.
- Contact your child’s Pastoral Manager as soon as possible if you are having difficulty getting your child into school.
Lates
Parents need to be aware that a pupil who is late to school after 9.30am will lose their attendance for that session. The DFE states that;
‘All schools are expected to set out in their attendance policy the length of time the register will be open, after which a pupil will be marked as absent. This should be the same for every session and not longer than 30 minutes.’
This means that if your child arrives after 9.30am to school they will be marked as late after the register is closed and this will affect their overall attendance.
What’s the best sort of start for your child? Just a little bit late doesn’t matter.
Does it?
We want our students you to be ready for the world of work by Year 11. To do this we need them to understand the importance of attendance and punctuality in the workplace. Look at the table below, to see just how much being late to school on a regular basis can seriously impact their education:
|
“They only missed just…” |
That equals… |
Which is… |
And over a school career… |
|
10 minutes per day |
50 minutes per week |
Nearly 1.5 weeks per year |
Nearly 0.5 school years |
|
20 minutes per day |
1 hour 40 minutes per week |
Over 2.5 weeks per year |
Nearly 1 school year |
|
30 minutes per day |
Half a day per week |
4 weeks per year |
Nearly 1.5 school years |
|
1 hour per day |
1 day per week |
8 weeks per year |
Over 2.5 school years |
If a student is late to school, the following sanctions are in place:
• If your child is late to school, after 8:40am, they will have a 15 minute after school detention that day.
• If your child is late, between 8:30am and 8:40am, twice in a week, they will have a 15 minute after school detention with their RSL (these take place twice weekly)
We expect good punctuality at all times of the day, so if your child is late to lesson (following the second bell) they will have a 15 minute after school detention that day.
Persistent Absence
Persistent Absence is attendance below 90% at the end of an academic year. This equates to 19 days of school missed. As adults we know that 19 days of absence from your place of work would have implications going forward for employees. At Sir William Stanier we want all our pupils by Y11 to be workplace ready. Therefore, throughout the school year we monitor persistent absence as this is the best indicator as to which students will have absence concerns.
Government statistics have shown that since the pandemic and the prevalence of Covid-19, attendance, and parental views on absence from school have changed and is likely to have had a damaging effect on pupil attendance to school. This, in real terms, means that parents are more likely to book term time holidays and keep children off school, when previously they would have sent them in with minor bugs or illness.
In school we are aware that children become poorly and from time to time will be understandably absent from school. However, over a school year, attendance – for the vast majority of students—should not fall below 97%. This equates to around 6 days of absence. If attendances falls below 95%, a supportive process will be implemented as follows;
Attendance falls below 95% – ‘Attendance Letter 1’ is issued. This is automatic and is vital in informing parents of the drop in attendance.
If there is no positive signs of improvement following an ‘Attendance Letter 1’ being sent, ‘Attendance Letter 2’ is issued. This will ensure that the school and home agree a ‘Raising Attendance Plan’ to improve.
If Attendance continues to fall and is now below 90%. Attendance letter 3 is issued and a meeting is held at the school to discuss how improvements can be made to ensure good attendance. Should parents fail to engage with the school (and outside agencies) to improve attendance then the school will refer to their Educational Welfare Officer (EWO) to ensure that school attendance improves.
In simple terms, the diagram below outlines our approach to supporting the excellent attendance of all of our students:
Requests for absence (Holidays)
Holidays should not be taken in school time. Any Leave of Absence can only be agreed by the Headteacher and only authorised where there are exceptional circumstances.
Download a request for absence form here:
Leave of Absence Request Form
Fixed Penalty Notices for Unauthorised Holidays
As you are aware CE put on hold the issuing of Fixed Penalty Notices in May 2016 due to the case of Isle of Wight v Platt. Which was found in favour of the Isle of Wight LA.
As a result of this judgement, the policy will recommence on 1st September 2017.
As from 1st September 2017 any requests made for a holiday to be taken in the academic year 2017-18 or thereafter which is not considered by the headteacher to be exceptional in circumstances, should be recorded as unauthorised, and a Fixed Penalty Notice will be issued by the LA.
Links
If you require support for your child’s attendance, then you can access these links below, or contact our Attendance Officer (email address above) or your child’s Pastoral Manager.
DFE: Working Together to Improve School Attendance (Support for Parents)