Attendance and Arrival

ATTENDANCE POLICY

The aim of the Attendance Policy is to provide an environment which encourages all our pupils to attend school regularly and punctually. At TCM, we collaborate with parents to encourage our pupils to strive for excellence at all times and in all. This is vital if we are to ensure they succeed in school and in their future lives.

Aims & Objectives

This attendance policy is to ensure that all staff and parents in our school are fully aware of and clear about the actions necessary to promote good attendance.

Through this policy we aim to:

• Improve pupils’ achievement by ensuring high level of attendance and punctuality.
• Achieve a minimum of 95% for all pupils, apart from those with chronic health issues.
• Create an ethos in which good attendance and punctuality are recognised as the norm and seen to be valued by the school.
• Raise awareness of parents, carers and pupils of the importance of uninterrupted attendance and punctuality at every stage of a child’s education.
• Ensure that our policy applies to children from the Preschool to KS2 in order to promote good habits at an early age.
• Work in partnership with pupils, parents and staff so that all pupils realise their potential, unhindered by unnecessary absence.
• Promote a positive and welcoming atmosphere in which pupils feel safe, secure and valued, and encourage in pupils a sense of their own responsibility.
• Establish a pattern of monitoring attendance and ensure consistency in recognising achievement and dealing with difficulties.
• Recognise the key role of all staff in promoting good attendance.

Responsibility of Parents/Carers/teachers

Children who are persistently late or absent will definitely fall behind with their learning. Children who are absent from school frequently develop large gaps in their learning which will impact on their progress and their ability to meet age related learning expectations. A child whose attendance drops to 90% each year will, over their time at primary school, have missed two whole terms of learning.

Punctuality

It is the parent/carers responsibility:

–          To ensure that their children arrive at school on time.

–          To ensure they report to the school office with the pupils to register for lateness and the consequence.

–          To ensure children are picked up promptly at the end of the school day and that necessary arrangements are in place for the journey home. If these differ from the child’s normal arrangements, the class teacher and school office should be made aware of this.

School staff members are responsible for ensuring that pupils have good attendance by:

• Ensuring attendance registers are kept accurately; appropriately noted between authorised and unauthorized absence (a letter or message from a parent does not in itself authorise an absence – only the school can decide whether the parent’s explanation justifies authorising the absence); if in doubt refer to head teacher
• Children can be marked as unable to attend due to exceptional circumstances if they are unable to get to school because of serious disruption to travel caused by a weather-related emergency (flooding)
• Contacting parents when they are concerned about a pupil’s absence, and recording the contact
• Promoting regular school attendance (for example by contacting parents on the second day of absence if parents have not contacted the school).

Note:

Persistent Latecomers

• Children who repeatedly attend school late after 8:25am will be brought to the attention of the Head of School and Director.
• Warning letters will be issued to the parents/carers of these children while the school will check for compliance
• Fixed penalty notices may be issued to parents/carers whose children persistently arrive late.

Habitually Punctual

• Awards will be given each term for the class with the highest attendance.
• Individual pupils with full attendance each term and academic year will be recognized and given awards.

ARRIVAL

• School day runs from 7am to 2pm for the Nursery school session and till 3pm for the Primary school session.
• The school gates will be open to receive children at 6:30am and closed at 8:00am. Children are expected to be at school by 7am at the latest for primary and 8am for the nursery.
• Children in the primary school who arrive at school after 7:30am will serve a mandatory detention. Furthermore, any child in the Primary, Reception and Nursery classes who arrives at school after 8:30am, will be sent back home.
• Only crèche and playgroup children are exempted.