Attendance

The school believes that to facilitate teaching and learning, good attendance is essential. Pupils cannot achieve their full potential if they do not regularly attend school.

We understand that barriers to attendance are complex, and that some pupils find it harder than others to attend school; therefore, we will continue to prioritise cultivating a safe and supportive environment at school, as well as strong and trusting relationships with pupils and parents.

We take a whole-school approach to securing good attendance and recognise the impact that our efforts in other areas - such as the curriculum, behaviour standards, bullying, SEND support, pastoral support, and the effective use of resources such as pupil premium - can have on improving pupil attendance.

We are committed to:

• Promoting and modelling high attendance and its benefits.

• Ensuring equality and fairness for all.

• Ensuring this attendance policy is clear and easily understood by staff, pupils and parents.

• Intervening early and working with other agencies to ensure the health and safety of our pupils.

• Building strong relationships with families to overcome barriers to attendance.

• Working collaboratively with other schools in the area, as well as other agencies.

• Ensuring parents follow the framework set in section 7 of the Education Act 1996, which states that the parent of every child of compulsory school age shall cause them to receive efficient
  full-time education suitable to their age, ability and aptitude, and to any SEND they may have, either by regular attendance at school or otherwise.

• Ensuring our attendance policy is clear and easily understood by all staff, parents and pupils.

• Regularly monitoring and analysing attendance and absence data to identify pupils or cohorts that require more support.

Absence Procedures

Parents/Carers will be required to contact the school office in person or via telephone (please leave a message on the answerphone) or by sending an email to parentcontact@redhillprimary.co.uk before 8:45am on the first day of their child's absence - they will be expected to provide an explanation for the absence and an estimation of how long the absence will last, e.g. one school day. It is expected that parents/carers will contact the school on every day of their child's absence.

Where a pupil is absent, and their parent/carer has not contacted the school by the close of the morning register to report the absence, administrative staff will contact the parent/carer by telephone call as soon as is practicable on the first day that they do not attend school. The administrative staff may also contact the other emergency contact details listed on the school's MIS system.

The school will always follow up any absences in order to:

• Ascertain the reason for the absence.

• Ensure the proper safeguarding action is being taken.

• Identify whether the absence is authorised or not.

• Identify the correct code to use to enter the data onto the school MIS system.

The NAP may attend the pupil's home to conduct a safe and well check on the pupil. These visits may be carried out whether the parent/carer has called to inform the school of the pupil's absence or not. These visits will be unannounced. They may be carried out more than once during the pupil's absence if it is ongoing. Other agencies working with families such as strengthening family's practitioners, social workers, etc may also be contacted to explore reasons for absences.

The school will not request medical evidence in most circumstances where a pupil is absent due to illness; however, the school reserves the right to request supporting evidence where there is genuine and reasonable doubt about the authenticity of the illness. If the school is not satisfied about the authenticity of the illness, the absence will be recorded as unauthorised, and parents/carers will be notified of this in advance and home visits may also be made.

If a pupil's attendance drops below 92 per cent, an informal meeting will be arranged with the pupil's parent/carer to discuss any barriers to a child's attendance and early help strategies will be agreed to help improve attendance. If a pupil's attendance drops below 90 per cent, a formal meeting will be arranged with the pupil's parent/carer.

Where a pupil has not returned to school for 10 days after an authorised absence or is absent from school without authorisation for 20 consecutive school days, the school will remove the pupil from the admissions register if the school and the Local Authority have failed to establish the whereabouts of the pupil after making reasonable enquiries.

Attendance Intervention

To ensure the school has effective procedures for managing absence, the NAP, supported by the SLT, will:

• Establish a range of evidence-based interventions to address barriers to attendance.

• Monitor the implementation and quality of escalation procedures and seek robust evidence of the escalation procedures that work.

• Attend or lead attendance reviews in line with escalation procedures.

Establish robust escalation procedures which will be initiated before absence becomes a problem by:

• Sending letters to parents

• Meeting with parents

• Engaging with LA attendance teams

• Using fixed penalty notices

• Creating attendance clinics

The school will use attendance data, to develop specific strategies to improve attendance where patterns of absence are emerging. These strategies will be developed on a case-by-case basis and will consider the needs of the pupils whom the intervention is designed to target.

The school will acknowledge outstanding attendance and punctuality in the following ways:

• Assemblies

• Certificates

• Parent Communication - parents/carers consultations, new starter meetings

• Class rewards

• New starter packs

School trips and events will be considered a privilege. Where attendance drops below 90 per cent, these privileges may be taken away. The school will develop strategies for ensuring that pupils with health needs or home circumstances that result in additional absences are not unfairly excluded from attendance rewards, e.g. by setting individualised targets.


Working with Parents to Improve Attendance

The school will work to cultivate strong, respectful relationships with parents/carers and families to ensure their trust and engagement. Open and honest communication will be maintained with pupils and their families about the expectations of school life, attendance and performance so that they understand what to expect and what is expected of them. The school will liaise with other agencies working with pupils and their families to support attendance, e.g. social services.

The school will ensure that there are two sets of emergency contact details for each pupil wherever possible to ensure the school has additional options for getting in touch with adults responsible for a pupil where the pupil is absent without notification or authorisation.

The school will ensure that parents are aware of their legal duty to ensure that their child attends school regularly and to facilitate their child's legal right to a full-time education - parents/carers will be made aware that this means their child must attend school every day that it is open, save for in certain circumstances, e.g. sickness or absences that have been authorised by the headteacher in advance. The school will regularly inform parents/carers about their child's levels of attendance, absence and punctuality, and will ensure that parents/carers are aware of the benefits that regular attendance at school can have for their child educationally, socially and developmentally.
If a pattern of absence becomes problematic, the NAP will work collaboratively with the pupil and their parents/carers to improve attendance by addressing the specific barriers that prevent the pupil from being able to attend school regularly. The school will always take into consideration the sensitivity of some of the reasons for pupil absence and will approach families to offer support rather than immediately reach for punitive approaches.

Where these barriers are related to the pupil's experience in school, e.g. bullying, the NAP will work with the headteacher and any relevant school staff, e.g. the DSL and SENCO, to address this. Where the barriers are outside of the school's control, e.g. they are related to issues within the pupil's family, the NAP will liaise with any relevant external agencies or authorities, e.g. children's social care or the LA, and will encourage parents/carers to access support that they may need.


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