THE IMPORTANCE OF ATTENDANCE

Research commissioned by the Department for Education, shows missing school for even a day can mean a child is less likely to achieve good grades, which can have a damaging effect on their life chances.

Think about these questions:

1. If my child has time off at primary school, does it make that much difference?
2. They can catch up eventually, can’t they?
3. So, a couple of days off isn’t that much work missed, is it?

If your child is absent, they miss lessons which may not be repeated which makes it hard to catch up with missed work and effects how well children do.

How much lesson time do they miss when they are off?

• Half day absent = 3 hours of lessons missed.
• 1 day absent = 5 hours of lessons missed.
• 3 days absent = 15 hours of lessons missed.

• 1 week absent = 25 hours of lessons missed.
• 2 weeks absent = 50 hours of lessons missed.

The possible impact for your child.

• They might feel a bit left out.
• They may not know how to do the work.
• They may fall behind and find it difficult to catch up.
• They may have to make friends again.

Finally, here is what it all adds up to.

If your child continues through their whole school life only attending 90% or less every year then their GCSE results WILL be affected, see below what the chances are:

If for any reason your child cannot attend school for example, as a result of illness, please telephone as soon as possible, before 8:35am if you are able to do so.

Please ensure your child is in school in good time to start the school day promptly at 8.30am. Our busy staff are only available to supervise children from 8:20am so please do not bring children to school before then if it can be avoided. We do understand that everyone has an occasional crisis and if you do need to bring your child to school before 8:20am please telephone and the staff will do their best to be helpful.

Please arrange for your child to be picked up promptly at the end of the school day at 3.00pm. If you are unavoidably delayed or have arranged for someone else to collect your child, please let your child’s class teacher know so that we are aware of the situation.

Our breakfast club provides childcare from 7.45am and After school club till 5.30pm.

How we can support your child’s attendance - Monitoring and the ‘Attendance Journey’

Below is a copy of the ‘Attendance Roadmap’ that explains the process we use to monitor attendance. Plus, the support available to pupils and families to ensure regular attendance is maintained.

We hope this demonstrates how our daily actions and processes aim to promote relationship building with children and families to prevent absence. This involves monitoring data trends and absence patterns to inform our conversations with you and your child where age allows. Should this monitoring trigger the need for an attendance conversation, a call, letter or email will be made directly to parent/carers to raise awareness of our emerging concerns. As a team, you will then be invited into school to identify ways to support an increase in attendance and support you on this journey – Steps 1–3.

Should ‘Early Help’ and ‘Formalised Support’ be unsuccessful and/or declined, more formal warnings and penalty notices, fines or legal action may be requested from the Local Authority (LA) – Steps 4-5.

If you would like to discuss your child’s attendance and/or the support available from our pastoral team, please email office@pepperhillschoolmk.org.uk or telephone the school on 01908 312912.