Termly Attendance Letters 

Parents will be sent an Attendance Letter at the end of the Autumn, Spring and Summer terms. This will detail your child’s attendance to date and give details of which of the bands (shown below) that they fall into. Should you wish to discuss any aspect of your child’s attendance, please make an appointment with the class teacher or the Headteacher (or other senior member of staff). 

 Attendance Banding Indicator 

The table below shows the impact of whole days absent and lost learning hours in one school year.

Attendance Strategy 

96– 100% Attendance

Congratulations your child’s attendance is excellent! 

91 – 96% Attendance

Your child’s attendance is slipping and is now below national average. Your child may have been ill or taken time off due to a sporting event or family holiday. This is not without cost to their education. They must try to catch up on the work they have missed and work hard to improve their attendance over the coming weeks. You can help improve their attendance by making sure that all appointments are out of school hours. The school may write raising concern about the attendance percentage or request further evidence to support reasons for absence to ensure any absence is coded correctly. 

86-90% Attendance

Your child’s attendance has fallen significantly below the national average for pupils in primary schools in England.

Regular and punctual attendance at school is a legal requirement under Section 444 of the Education Act 1996. As a school, it is our duty to challenge pupil absence.

The school will again write to parents raising concerns surrounding attendance and informing parents that, when certain thresholds are met, a referral to the Education Welfare Service may be required. 

Where Attendance Does Not Improve 

If there is no improvement, the school will begin to prepare a referral for Education Welfare involvement which can lead to fines, prosecution, community hours, court orders etc.

If a referral is made, you will be either issued with a Warning Penalty Notice, which requires the child to be in school for 15 consecutive days, or a referral for case work will be requested, which will lead to parents being invited into the School for a Parenting Contract meeting with the Class Teacher and Headteacher (or other senior member of staff).