The Importance of School Attendance
The school wants all children to have the best possible attendance to enable each and every child to reach their full potential.
There is a strong link between good school attendance and achieving good results for children. Children who frequently miss school may fall behind in their work which may affect their future prospects.
Good school attendance also shows future employers that a young person is reliable, more likely to achieve well and play a positive role in their community.
At King's Academy College Park, we work closely with families to support them to achieve the best possible outcomes for their children.
Parents of children registered to attend King's Academy College Park have a legal duty to ensure their child attends our school regularly. This means their child must attend every day that the school is open, except in a small number of allowable circumstances, such as being too ill to attend or being given permission for an absence in advance from the school.
- A child who is absent a day of school per week misses an equivalent of two years of their school life
- Each day of school missed by a child will reduce their attendance by 0.5%, and at secondary school will mean they miss five lessons.
- Ten whole days of school has been missed if a pupil has 95% attendance – that’s 50 lessons.
- Twenty whole days of school has been missed if a pupil’s attendance is 90%.
- If a pupil is persistently absent (90% attendance) they have missed 4 weeks of schooling.
- Being 15 minutes late each day is the same as missing two weeks of school over the year.
- Catching up on missed lessons impacts on the pupil, the teacher and other pupils in that class.
Running Late?
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Remember school gates open at 8.30 AM!
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Junior children will be collected from the playground at 8.40am!
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Infant children's doors will open at 8.45am!
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Gates on Lyndhurst Road will close earlier - if you are not going to be on time go straight to Crofton Road!
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Get everything ready the night before - uniform, packed lunch, PE kit ... Don't forget the breakfast things.
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Set that alarm clock five minutes fast.
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Don't allow TV or computer games before everyone is ready - if at all.
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If you are driving to school, allow additional time to find a parking space.
Lateness and punctuality
A pupil who arrives late:
- Before the register has closed will be marked as late, using the appropriate code
- After the register has closed will be marked as absent, using the appropriate code
Please note - Junior children entering through infant school gates after 8.50am will need to make their way independently to the school office to be marked in as late. Parents and carers must not enter the school building.
Unplanned absence
The pupil’s parent/carer must notify the school on the first day of an unplanned absence by 8.30am or as soon as practically possible using the Study Bugs app where possible.
We will mark absence due to illness as authorised unless the school has a genuine concern about the authenticity of the illness.
If the authenticity of the illness is in doubt, the school may ask the pupil’s parent/carer to provide medical evidence, such as a doctor’s note, prescription, appointment card or other appropriate form of evidence. We will not ask for medical evidence unnecessarily.
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.
Planned absence
Attending a medical or dental appointment will be counted as authorised as long as the pupil’s parent/carer notifies the school in advance of the appointment.
However, we encourage parents/carers to make medical and dental appointments out of school hours when possible. Where this is not possible, the pupil should be out of school for the minimum amount of time necessary.
The pupil’s parent/carer must also apply for other types of term-time absence as far in advance as possible of the requested absence.
Following up absence
Where any child we expect to attend school does not attend, or stops attending, the school will:
- Follow up on their absence with their parent/carer to ascertain the reason, by either a phone call or contact on Study Bugs
- Ensure proper safeguarding action is taken where necessary
- Identify whether the absence is approved or not
- Identify the correct attendance code to use
Reporting to parents
The school will report to parents on their child’s attendance annually in the written end-of-year report.