Attendance
Your responsibilities as a parent
By law, all children of compulsory school ago must receive a suitable full-time education. As a parent, you have legal responsibilities to make sure this happens – either by registering your child at a school or by making other arrangements to give them a suitable, full-time education. Once your child is registered at a school, you are legally responsible for making sure they attend regularly. This means your child should not have sessions of unauthorised absence.
Our aim is for all children to achieve as close to 100% attendance as possible. We need your support for this to happen. Please ensure that you are clear as to when our holidays are, so that you can plan holidays in the correct time.
If your child is absent from school, please ring and leave a brief message on our school answer phone on the morning of the absence. 01925 265297
As a parent/carer you want the best for your children. Having a good education is an important factor in opening up more opportunities in adult life. Did you know that:
- A child who is absent a day a week misses an equivalent of two years of their school life
- 90% of young people with absence rates below 85% fail to achieve five or more good grades of GCSE and around one third achieve no GCSE’s at all
- Poor examination results limit young people’s options and poor attendance suggests to colleges and employers that these students are unreliable
- Poor school attendance is also closely associated with crime, a quarter of school age offenders have truanted repeatedly
- At least 1 million children are missed each year through unauthorised absence
GCSE’s may seem a long way off for you and your children but all absence at any stage leads to gaps in your child’s learning. This in turn can:
- Mean that they fall behind in work
- Affect their motivation
- Affect their enjoyment of learning
- Lead to poor behaviour
- Affect their desire to attend school regularly
- Affect their confidence in school
- Mean they miss out on the social life of school and extra-curricular opportunities and experiences
- Affect their ability to have or keep friendships
By law, all children of compulsory school ago must receive a suitable full-time education. As a parent, you have legal responsibilities to make sure this happens – either by registering your child at a school or by making other arrangements to give them a suitable, full-time education. Once your child is registered at a school, you are legally responsible for making sure they attend regularly. This means your child should not have sessions of unauthorised absence.
.png?width=1920&height=1080&scale=LIMIT_MAXSIZE "Attendance WBC(1)")
The School Day
The school day begins at 8.50 a.m. with the gates opening at 8.40am allowing the children to walk around to their classrooms for morning activities. Unless children are involved in pre-school activities, arrival prior to this time is discouraged, as there is no supervision.
No child will be allowed to leave school during the school hours unless collected by a parent / guardian from the main entrance or having notified the school, in writing, of their arrangements. Children must be signed out of school and back into school via the school office.
Pupils are expected to attend school for 190 days when the school is open, unless they are ill, have to attend hospital, have medical or dental appointments, or have to attend the funeral of a near relative. Regular attendance is important to foster appropriate attitudes to school and to aid continuity of progress. Frequent absences can lead to truancy. The school has a responsibility to report to the Attendance Officer any persistent absence.
Punctuality
School opens at 8.40am every morning and the gates close for registration at 8.50am. During this time children have morning learning tasks that help your child to progress with their schooling and lets them settle into the school day in a calm and productive manner. Over the course of a week, if a child is late, they will have missed 50 minutes of learning time. Please look at the chart below to see how much of an impact punctuality has. We appreciate your support with this.
Children's illnesses and medicine in school
If your child has been absent through illness please ensure he/she is fully recovered before returning to school. Should your child become unwell in school, we will care for him/her whilst contacting you through your "Emergency Contact Number". If you have any concerns or questions, or a child with medical or dietary needs, then please contact school for details of how we can help and support.
Please notify us of any change in the "Emergency Contacts". This information is sometimes vital.
The school prefers parents to come into school to administer medicines to children e.g. antibiotics. Where this is really not possible the following applies:-
The Warrington Policy adopted by Broomfields Junior School stresses that:
- Medicines will only be administered in school, if the medicine is brought to school by the child's parent and handed to the Headteacher with clear instructions for use written by the parent. This then constitutes formal permission.
- Any such medicine must be clearly marked with the child's name and prescribed dosage.
- Only medication (such as inhalers for asthma) previously agreed between parents and school (listed on Emergency Contact Information) may be personally carried and used by children. No other medications should be brought by the children and verbal messages from children regarding dosages will not be accepted.
- Patent medicines, such as cough mixtures or tonics, should only be brought to school by parents if they have been prescribed by the child's own doctor.
- The school is not allowed to keep or administer aspirin or paracetamol to children in school.