Attendance

Times of the school day 
8.30 Children allowed on site
8.40 Doors open ‘free-flow start’ for those that need time to acclimatise
8.50 Whistle blown – reminder for children to enter the building
8.50 Morning registration
3.20 Home time
Total hours provided in a typical week:  37.5 hours (including registration, assembly and breaktimes) 

Registration
School is open from 08.40am for children to complete settling in activities if they wish. At 8.50am all pupils are expected to be in class for registration to take place. In line with our Attendance Policy, if your child arrives between 08.51am and 09.00am, they are deemed as ‘late’ and will need to report to reception. They will also have the time of arrival recorded, for example, if they arrive at 08.54 , they will have four minutes marked as late. We consider a window of ten minutes to allow for traffic issues or any other difficulties in getting to school on time a reasonable amount of lee-way.

Registers close at 09.00am, therefore if your child arrives after this time, an ‘unauthorised’ mark will be recorded. Again, their arrival time will be noted. For example, if they arrive at 09.15am, they will have 25 minutes unauthorised absence. We request that all children are accompanied by an adult to the school office if they are later than 08.50am.

May we also request when leaving a message on the answer-phone informing us of your child’s absence due to sickness, to give exact details as to why they are unwell, rather than just saying ‘poorly’. Thank you for your understanding in this important respect of attendance.

Welfare Visits
If your child is absent from school we request you contact the school office every day of your child’s absence. If we have not been contacted by 1pm (of the same day) and we have been unable to contact you or additional contacts we will complete a home visit. This is to check on the welfare of your child as part of our Safeguarding Procedures. If you are not at home and we have not heard from you within 24 hours we will visit again and may contact the Police.

Leave of absence requests
Children have 13 weeks annual holiday from school and school holiday dates are published well in advance online. As such, all parents/carers are expected wherever possible to plan and take their family holidays at this time so as not to disrupt their children’s education. Education law states that parents do not have a right to take their child out of school for a holiday during term time. Only in exceptional circumstances may a headteacher grant permission for leave; and it is the headteachers decision on whether the absence is exceptional and how many days to approve.Parents/carers who take their child out of school without the absence being agreed and authorised by written permission from the school can be issued with a penalty fine.See the Department for Education for more information