Attendance is Our Priority
Key members of staff:
Attendance Champion – Head Teacher: Mr A Rogers
Attendance Officer – Safeguarding & Attendance Officer: Jane Thompson
Link Governor –
Our attendance last academic year 2023-2024 = 95%
Here at Stanhope, attendance continues to be our priority. We recognise and can evidence that persistent absence from school will inevitably affect your child’s education and possible future life chances. Please ensure your child is in school every day unless they are too ill to attend.
The Department for Education has shared with schools and Local Authorities changes to attendance guidance that will become statutory and must be implemented after the 19th August 2024. All schools and Local Authorities must make these changes across the country, with the aim of ensuring consistent approaches.
These changes are broken down into four categories and will be in place in our school from today.
- A new National Framework for Attendance Penalty Notices
Any attendance Penalty Notices issued after the 19th August 2024 will be issued in line with the new regulations. The new Penalty Notice regulations are:
– Each parent will be issued a separate Penalty Notice, for each child who is absent.
For example, 2 parents and 3 children = each parent will receive 3 penalty notices for £160 each, with a family total of £960 in fines.
– The fine amount will be £160 per parent, per child paid within 28 days, reduced to £80 per parent, per child if paid within 21 days.
– This is considered your first offence.
– The next time an offence occurs, within 3 years of the date the first Penalty Notice is issued, the fine amount will be £160 per parent, per child paid within 28 days, with no reduction.
– The third time an offence occurs this will be presented to Magistrate’s court with no Penalty Notice issued.
This will include unauthorised holidays and persistent absence.
For irregular attendance – Where a child has unauthorised absences of 10 sessions or more in any 10-week period, the school must consider escalation to prosecution. Sessions refer to each half a school day, with most schools having 2 sessions each day. The school must consider the reasons for the absence, the support already offered, and the engagement of the parents/carers and young person. These 10 sessions could be made up of term time leave, unauthorised late marks, or unauthorised absence.
It is therefore important to notify school every day that your child is absent, providing a reason, and where appropriate evidence of medical appointments or prescribed medication. Schools will consider NHS and government guidance when making their decision whether to authorise absence due to illness.
- Updates to the Working Together to Improve Attendance Guidance
The Department for Education have updated the Working together to improve school attendance (applies from 19 August 2024) available on the DFE website. This clarifies the expectations for parents, schools and the Local Authority to promote the importance of regular attendance at school, and to provide ideas for support and interventions when a young person is not attending school on a regular basis.
- Regulation changes to modernise school attendance and admission registers.
The predominant change is around the use of attendance coding for schools to use on their attendance register. This may mean that you see different marks on your child’s attendance certificate, including sub codes for example Y4 for school closed due to weather conditions. The H code for authorised term time leave (holiday) has been removed, therefore Head Teachers can no longer authorise term time leave, unless there are exceptional circumstances covered by the C code. We must request an attendance Penalty Notice if there are 5 or more days of unauthorised absence.
- Regulations will come into force on the 19thAugust 2024 to mandate attendance data sharing by all state funded schools.
This means that your child’s attendance data will be shared with the Department for Education and the Local Authority every day. This will be live data. This will allow the DFE to provide schools with the tools to monitor and see improvement in attendance, and will allow the Local Authority to provide advice, support, and Early Help services. It will also allow tracking of attendance trends for example a child reported as ill the same week each year, or a certain year group or cohort with patterns of absence.
With all of these changes, the priority is supporting a young person to access school every day, ensuring they have the reasonable adjustments, interventions and early help to engage in their learning.
If your child is finding attending school difficult, is feeling anxious about attending school, or needs help to access their education please contact me (Mrs J Thompson) to arrange a meeting to discuss reasonable adjustments and the support available for your child.
Things you can do to help.
Promote school attendance initiatives to your child.
Use your judgement and it may be the case that your child can cope with their school day with a mild cough or cold. We will contact you if they are not feeling well in school.
Ensure your child arrives at school on time. It is our experience that children do not like to enter their class late. This not only disrupts their start of the school day but their peers too. We have a unique staggered intake system on a morning, this works really well and gives plenty of time for parents to carry out the school run without the whole school rush all at once.
Collect your child at the end of their school day and NOT before.
Arrange medical appointments e.g. routine dental check-ups out of school hours whenever possible.
In the event your child is too ill to attend, you must telephone school to give a reason of absence. The easiest way to do this is to ring our school number on 0191 4201710 and leave a message on the attendance voicemail (line1). I (J Thompson) listen to all messages, log your child’s absence on our school system and inform their class teacher / support staff preferably before 8.45am.
As mentioned earlier, it is best to keep family holidays outside of term time. The Holiday registration code is no longer in place. In the event you would like your child to be absent from school for a holiday / event, you must complete a Leave of Absence Request Form and submit this at least one month prior to the absence. Family holidays will not be authorised.
Attendance Initiatives
The Attendance Cup Race to promote good attendance. The class with the BEST attendance is announced during Friday’s assembly. The class winners keep Poppy the attendance mascot and the attendance cup in their class for the week.
The reward is a McDonald’s Happy meal for the class with the best attendance at the end of the academic year.
Attend to Achieve Weeks take place termly and the reward is usually a cinema afternoon in the school hall or an afternoon of outdoor play with activities (summer).
Attend to Achieve Month takes place annually during the month of January. Rewards include a Magician Show, inflatable party, cinema in the school hall.
Bronze, silver and gold attendance bears and bronze, silver, gold certificates initiative.
Children who achieve 100% termly attendance receive a bear and certificate.
Certificates and bears are given out during a special awards assembly.
100 Club display board children with 100% attendance have their names displayed on the 100 club board.
Annual Cinema Trip takes place each year in July. All of our whole year 100% attendees are rewarded with a trip to the cinema and their lunch at McDonalds.
End of year awards assembly takes place to present all of the annual certificates, prizes and the Attendance big bear is presented to the class with the best attendance for the year. Punctuality certificates and badges rewarded.
May half term passport scheme / raffle. All children who attend for this half term have their name placed in a special raffle.
