Attendance

Introduction

At Atlas Primary School, we are working hard to improve our attendance. We want our attendance to be above 96% for the whole school year.

We believe that every child should have the best education possible and we can only provide this, if your child is coming to school every day. This is because we offer a wide range of learning opportunities that we want children to be involved in on a daily basis.

You, as parents and carers, are particularly important in helping us achieve this, by bringing your children to school on time every day.

Attendance Expectations

Each term, we discuss children’s attendance with them at their learning journey meetings. We expect all children to have ‘Good’ or better attendance. We assess their attendance using the following criteria:

Rewards and Incentives

We offer many different rewards and incentives to children to improve their attendance.

Weekly Attendance Individual Rewards

Each week, children with 100% attendance are entered into a special prize raffle in each year group. If your child’s name is drawn, then they will win a small prize.

Weekly Attendance Class Rewards

We also reward the class with the highest attendances each week using a points-based system. The class with the highest weekly attendance is given ten points; second-place is given seven points; and third place is given three points.

The class with the highest number of points at the end of the year is rewarded with a visit to a local museum or other place of interest.

Termly Attendance Rewards

Each child who achieves 100% attendance for the term will receive a special certificate congratulating them on their outstanding attendance.

Yearly Attendance Individual Rewards

At the end of the school year, any child with 100% attendance will have their name entered into a prize draw. In our final celebration assembly, one child’s name is drawn from the list of names. The winning child will receive a free bike, courtesy of the school.

Reporting Absences

If your child is ill and unable to attend school, it is important that you ring our office to let us know as soon as possible and no later than 8am on the morning of illness.

You should contact the school every day that your child is to be absent, giving us a reasonable explanation for the absence and an estimated date and time of return.

Mr. Brearley in the office is the school’s attendance leader. He is always available to discuss your child’s attendance, as are our school’s senior leadership team. You can also speak to your child’s class teacher if you need support improving your child’s attendance or if you are having trouble picking them up, or dropping them off, on time.

Home Visits

The school has a legal responsibility to account for every child. Therefore, if you have not let us know that your child is absent and we are unable to contact you, or if we have not seen your child for a period equal to 3 days or more, our staff or an attendance officer from Bradford Council, will conduct a home visit to check on the welfare of your child. If we’ve carried out 2 home visits and not seen your child, we will ask West Yorkshire police to carry out a welfare check.

Reasonable Absences

Many children lose days of learning through coughs, colds and temperatures. These are not considered reasonable absences by the school. The school is able to administer paracetamol to any children who have minor ailments such as these.

If you are not sure whether your child should be in school or not on account of illness, then please speak to a member of the office team.

Term Time Holidays

If you are planning a holiday, the school’s policy states that you must meet with Mrs. Simpson to discuss your leave of absence request.

If your child is absent from school for 20 days in a row, then your child will be removed automatically from the register. Any child removed from the register will have to reapply for their place. Unfortunately, the school cannot guarantee that the place vacated by your child will still be there.

Exceptional Circumstances

The school does not allow days off from school, other than in exceptional circumstances. Examples of exceptional circumstances are as follows:

• If a parent/carer is service personnel;
• On the advice of a health professional;
• Out of school, educational programmes (music, arts, sports, etc.);
• Religious observance;
• Attending a wedding or funeral of a close relative.

The Head Teacher is unable to authorise term time leave of 5 days or more and any leave of absence equalling or exceeding 5 days will result in a fine from the local authority.

Punctuality and Lateness

As you may be aware, the school has recently implemented systems to improve the number of children signing in late in the morning. This has already had a considerable impact on reducing the number of children arriving in school later than 8:45am.

If your child is late for school, they will be expected to sign in at the main office, before being walked around the building to their respective classrooms.

In the afternoon, we ask that all parents are waiting outside your child’s classroom for 3:00pm. If, on a particular day, you are running late to pick up your child, it is important that you let the school know as soon as possible.

Next year, we will be putting in place new systems to reduce the number of children picked up late from school.

Breakfast and After-School Clubs

If you are having trouble dropping your child off on time in the morning, the school runs a morning breakfast club. The cost of each session is 50p and you can drop your child off any time between 7:45am & 8:15am.

We also run a series of after-school clubs most days of the week. Please speak to the office staff if you would like more information about these.

Improving Poor Attendance

If your child’s attendance drops below 96%, or there are other emerging attendance concerns, you may be asked to meet with your child’s class teacher and a member of the senior leadership team to discuss how the school can further support you in improving your child’s attendance.

These meetings have helped improve attendance for many children this year.

If your child’s attendance is a particular concern for the school, we may choose to monitor it more closely for a period of four weeks. During this time, it is expected that your child’s attendance is no less than 100%.

Should your child’s attendance continue to drop, or fall below 90%, we have a duty as a school to seek the advice and support of external agencies, such as children’s social care.

A Few Facts…

Being late also adds up…

• Arriving 5 minutes late every day adds up to over 3 days lost each year.
• Arriving 15 minutes late every day is the same as being absent for 2 weeks a year.
• Arriving 30 minutes late every day is the same as being absent for 19 days a year.

In truth, your child will not have access to the education they deserve if their attendance is not ‘Good’ or better.

Please click the button below to view our handy Attendance Guide:

Attendance Guide