Attendance
To get the best out of school and all it has to offer, children need to come to school every day and be on time.
Willesborough Infant and Junior School Pupil Attendance
Good school attendance is paramount to every child’s success. Our vision at Willesborough, is for every child to enjoy school, embrace all the opportunities offered and achieve their best potential.
What the Law Says
As a parent, ensuring your child’s regular attendance at school is a legal responsibility and permitting absence from school without good reason can be classed as an offence.
What the Government Says
Government guidelines state that an attendance figure of 90% or less is classed as a ‘persistent absence’. The government identifies a good level of attendance as 95% or more. At Willesborough, we will inform you each term of your child’s attendance rates. We will also notify you in writing if we feel that your child’s attendance needs to be improved.
What Willesborough Says
At Willesborough, we expect children to attend school every day, as long as they are fit and healthy enough to do so.
We understand that there can be tricky times and as ever, we are always on hand to offer you any support that you feel you need. If there are ever any problems, please do not hesitate to come and see us and let us know how we can help.
We have a large pastoral support team; Anna Broad, FLO, Kelly Bowles, FLO and Sarah Pepper, Welfare Support Practitioner. In addition to Anna, Kelly and Sarah, your child’s teachers and teaching assistants are always on hand, as are senior leaders; Fran Rusbridge, Headteacher and Tom Head, Shelly King, Andrea Cooper, Flick Eastwood, Assistant Headteachers.
What the Numbers Tell Us
If your child attends school between 95% and 100%, they are on track to achieve their very best and enjoy all that school has to offer.
Just 10 days absence in a year can take your child’s attendance down to 94.7%
Whilst a figure of 90% sounds good, in reality, this means that your child has missed half a day of school every week or a full month of the year. If a child only attended school for 90% of the year, every year, throughout his or her primary school career, this would equate to one whole school year missed in total.
Sickness
If your child is not coming to school because they are ill or have an appointment, please contact the school office between 8.30am and 9.30am, explaining why they will not be with us.
For safeguarding reasons, if we have not heard from you by 9.30am we will contact you.
What does good attendance look like?
The table below, illustrates, how an overall percentage of attendance translates into the number of days lost within a year.
Holiday/Leave of absence from school
Sadly, we have all missed out on holidays, days out and special events over the past two years, due to the pandemic and we appreciate that holiday costs are now rising, however, we will not authorise time off during term time and will issue penalty notices.
Please ask in the office if you require a hard copy of our Attendance Policy. Application forms for leave are available from the school office and need to be completed for any days where your child is going to be away from school for a reason other than illness. Please do not take holiday in term time.
Below is a copy of our Attendance leaflet detailing the school day and giving a brief overview of our attendance policy/illness procedure. If you would like a paper copy, please visit the school office. We have also included a link to our Attendance Policy.