All Souls' School is committed to the continuous raising of achievement of all our pupils. Regular attendance is critical, if our pupils are to be successful and benefit from the opportunities presented to them.

You will have seen that on the new My Child at School App you are able to access your child's attendance. We shall now also be reporting on absence every week in the newsletter from this week and this will be recorded a week in arrears.

At All Souls’, we monitor and record attendance and punctuality, and want to work with our families to support them in achieving at least 95% each week. The table below records the whole school weekly attendance percentage, an average weekly punctuality percentage and persistent absence percentage for the whole school. As a school, we want to achieve 95% or above for both whole school attendance and punctuality average. Our aim is for persistent absence to be less than 5%. The colour code and categories are explained in the table below. Please feel free to contact the school, if you would like support with attendance or punctuality.

At All Souls’, we want to celebrate good attendance and punctuality. The children with 95% or above attendance for the week, will be given a raffle ticket with their name on it. At the end of the term, 10 names will be drawn out of a hat, and those children will be able to attend a special tea party with members of the Senior Leadership team, governors and teaching staff.

Parental Responsibility

Parents have a legal duty to ensure that their children attend school regularly and arrive on time. Regular attendance is essential to the all-round development of the child, and they should be allowed to take full advantage of educational opportunities available to them in order to make good progress in their learning. Poor attendance undermines their educational attainment and progress and, sometimes, puts pupils at risk by encouraging anti-social behaviour.

Did you know...

In 2019, data showed that primary children in Key Stage 2 who didn’t achieve the expected standard in reading, writing and maths, missed on average four more days per school year than those whose performance exceeded the expected standard.

 

Lateness

The school gates open at 8:20am. The gates will shut at 08.30am, and all pupils are expected to be in class by then.

If your child is late for school and enters through the school office, you will be asked to explain the reason why they are late. Lateness will mean they will be coded ‘L’ on the register, and if they arrive after 8.45am they will be coded as unauthorised, which will show as a ‘U’ on the register.

The school regularly monitors children who have ‘L’ or ‘U’ codes and will work closely with families, offering support to ensure your child arrives at school on time. If there is no improvement, the local authority will be notified.

Unauthorised absence

If you have not called the school office by 8.30am on the morning of your child’s absence, your child will be marked as unauthorised which will be an ‘O’ code on the register.

If an answerphone message is left informing us of your child’s absence, we may call you to discuss it further and ask for more information on the illness.

Please note your child’s absence can still be marked as ‘O’ (unauthorised), if the school deem the reason to be unacceptable. For example, if the reason is not related to your child being unwell, if the school feels your child could be in school with Calpol and monitored, or in some circumstances, there is no medical evidence to support the absence.

If you have contacted the school with a reason for your child’s absence, but the reason is not related to your child being unwell, the school may still mark this as an unauthorised absence. This will be considered on a case-by-case basis.

If your child has 10 ‘U’ or ‘O’ codes in 50 school days, we will continue to work with you to support your child’s attendance. Alongside this, we will also refer to outside agencies to work with you. A fixed penalty notice may also be applied at this stage, should attendance not improve.

Absence due to illness

If a child is absent and a message has not been received, you will receive a phone call to find out the reason for the absence. If we are unable to contact you via phone, a text message will be sent asking you to contact the school to inform us of the reason. If the school receives no contact regarding the absence, this will be recorded as an unauthorised absence.

Holiday requests during term time

We will not authorise any holidays in term time. Any holidays of 5 days or more will be referred to the enforcement team and may result in a fixed penalty notice. 

Religious festivals

If your child is absent from school due to observing a religious festival, please contact the school to let us know, and this will be recorded accordingly on the register.

Absence due to an appointment

As a school, we understand that it may be necessary to take a child out of school for an appointment e.g. GP, dentist, physiotherapist etc. during the school day.  Where possible, we would ask parents to try to minimise the number of appointments made during school hours, and to provide an appointment card/letter to support the absence. Where possible, children will be expected to return to school if their appointment is in the morning. Likewise, we expect children to be at school in the morning, if their appointment is in the afternoon. We thank you in advance for your co-operation with this matter.