Meridian Community Primary School & Nursery

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Attendance

Every School Day Counts!

Did you know that across the year there are just 190 school days? That means there are already 175 days set aside for weekends, holidays, family visits and rewarding days out.

We believe every school day counts to give your child the greatest opportunity of attaining a good education and to support a happy and healthy future.

 

With 175 days already marked out as ‘non-school-days’, you should have an exceptional reason to withdraw your child from school.

The following are considered illegitimate reasons and are likely to be rejected and unauthorised:

      • Trips to visit family/friends
      • Your child's birthday
      • Cheaper family holidays
      • Tickets to sports/culture events

100% is recognised as an expected level of school attendance. If your child is out of school for 3 days each term, then their attendance is below 95% and they’re spending

more days out of school than in it! Should your child need time off due to illness, this figure will quickly become even lower. Because five days of school equates to 25 hours of learning,

catching up with extra work out of school is unrealistic.

 

From a young person’s perspective, missing schools means:

  • Missing out on fun projects and school activities
  • Struggling to catch up on work
  • Disconnecting with school friends

 

The vast majority of headteachers do not authorise any absence in term time, in fact, many schools refused 100% of requests last year.

If you wish to request withdrawal of your child from learning, you will need to complete a request form which is available from the school office or you can download a copy from the link below.

Withdrawal from Learning Request Form

 

Attendance procedures:

Meridian Community Primary School and Nursery expect all parents/carers to adhere to the following update procedures whenever your child is absent from school. 

As you will be aware, the Government said that from September, schools are open for a full return for all children. We had a great start to the school year with 96.6% attendance in the first week- amazing! We know that there are additional challenges for everyone this year as a result of the pandemic so the attendance team felt that now would be a good time to remind everyone of our school attendance procedures.

• If your child is absent from school, please call our school absence line by 9.15am and leave a message with your child’s name, class and reason for absence. The absence line is open 24 hours.

• Please leave a message on the absence line for each day your child is off school. It may become a safeguarding issue if we do not hear from parents and carers.

• On return to school, please provide a handwritten note explaining the absence. This can be passed to the class teacher or teaching assistant. This includes for any absence related to Covid-19.

• If the school do not receive a letter on the child’s return, the absence is recorded as unauthorised. This is the case even if you have phoned the school absence line.

• If your child has a medical appointment, please bring in an appointment card or letter to confirm this. Where possible, please bring this in in advance of the appointment. Children can still attend school in the morning or afternoon of the day they have an appointment.

• We have a responsibility to monitor pupil attendance and do this in line with East Sussex County Council expectations. This means that is your child’s attendance drops below 96% you may receive a letter or a call from a member of the attendance team. This is to let you know that attendance has dipped and is an offer of support. 

• If your child has 3 separate periods of absence, you may receive a letter from the attendance team asking you to provide medical evidence for any absence moving forwards. This is in line with other school across East Sussex. Failure to provide evidence will mean that the absence is unauthorised. We appreciate it is not easy to get face to face appointments with your GP at the moment however, GP surgeries are continuing to provide consultations via phone and in person where  necessary.

• If attendance continues to drop, it may result in a referral to the Education Welfare Officer.

 

Ms C Wesctott – Headteacher

Mrs Lucy Newth – Assistant Headteacher

Samira Sciberras-Clarke – Educational Welfare Officer

Attendance policy