Westvale Park
Primary Academy
Always Children First
Attendance
Attendance Expectations
Regular and punctual attendance at school is both a legal requirement and essential for children and young people to maximise their educational opportunities. The expectation is that every child should be in school, every day, unless they are unwell. It is taken into account that children are likely to be unwell at some point during their school year and as a result, the attendance expectation here at Westvale Park Primary Academy is set at 96%.
Westvale Park is committed to ensuring the best possible outcomes for all our pupils. In order to ensure this, if your child’s attendance shows a decrease towards the school’s expectation of 96%, you will be notified, and we will aim to work with you to ensure that any issues are resolved as quickly as possible. If your child’s attendance drops below 90%, they will be considered ‘Persistently Absent’ and will be raised as a concern with the Surrey County Council’s Inclusion Service. In this instance, the Inclusion Service would aim to work with you to improve your child’s attendance however, if this proved unsuccessful, legal action would be considered.
Absence
The table below shows the impact of whole days absent and lost learning hours in one school year:
Descriptor | Attendance | Whole Days Absent | Lost Hours of Learning |
| Excellent | 100%-99% | 0-2 | 0-10 |
| Good | 98%-96% | 4-7.5 | 20-37.5 |
| Requires Improvement | 95%-91% | 9.5-17 | 47.5-85 |
| Persistent Absentee | 90%-86% | 19-27 | 95-135 |
| Critical | 85%-80% | 28.5-38 | 142.5-190 |
The Department for Education say there is clear evidence of a link between poor attendance at school and low levels of achievement.
Late
Being late for school can have a considerable impact over the whole school year. The table below shows you just how much time can be missed over a year just by being 5 minutes late to school every day:
| 5 minutes late every day = 3 days of school lost a year |
| 10 minutes late every day = 6.5 days of school lost a year |
| 15 minutes late every day = 10 days of school lost a year |
| 20 minutes late every day = 13 days of school lost a year |
| 30 minutes late every day = 19 days of school lost a year |
We understand that the school mornings can be hectic, but when your child is late for school they are missing out on vital parts of their education.
Should you have any questions regarding attendance, or you would like to discuss how we may support you in ensuring your child attends school regularly, please contact the school office for an appointment with the school’s Attendance Officer, Mrs Burdfield.
Absent Pupil Procedure
If your child is going to be absent from school parents/carers must report the absence to the school office by 8.40am. An answer phone facility is available on our school absence line. Please leave a message stating your child’s name, class, and reason for their absence including any specific illness details.
If a child is not in school and we have had no communication from parents/carers by 9.30am, parents/carers will receive a text message from the school requesting information and/or a reason for the child’s absence. Parents/carers should respond to this message as quickly as possible. This reassures us that children are safe. Unexplained absences will always be recorded as unauthorised.
If we are unable to make contact, the school will follow an Absent Pupil Procedure which involves us undertaking several steps to ensure ourselves of the safe whereabouts of the pupil. This is part of our safeguarding commitment.
Working with Parents/Carers
If a child has been absent from school on a number of separate occasions, we may write to you or seek to speak with you to notify you that their overall attendance percentage is decreasing. This is not to be seen as a negative communication but rather a way of us keeping you informed of what our data is telling us and a reminder that should you or your child have any concerns around attending school, you are welcome to come in and discuss this with us. We will always try to help wherever we can.
Our letter process starts by advising of a reduced level of attendance, however if further absence is incurred, you may receive a second letter which invites you to come into the school for a discussion.
Genuine illness is marked as authorised absence however where it is identified that a child has incurred many absences which are all illness related, we may write to you to advise that further absences will need to be evidenced, or that we require extra information regarding the illness to enable us to continue authorising the absences.
We will always aim to work with parents to resolve any attendance difficulties however where we have undertaken many unsuccessful attempts, if attendance is considered an issue, in the interests of our pupils, we will seek the involvement of Surrey County Council’s Inclusion Service.
Promoting good attendance
Westvale Park promotes good attendance in a variety of different ways including the issuing of certificates termly, stickers to the best class in each phase half termly and celebratory assemblies.
Attendance Awards
We are very pleased to be able to report the best attendance for the first half of the spring term.
A huge congratulations was awarded to Squirrels class in EYFS. This class achieved 95.25% attendance.
At school age the winning class was Stoats achieving 96.11%.
Children in these classes were presented with a "Good Attendance" sticker in assembly on the last day of half term.
Well done everyone and let's keep it up! |