Mrs Neat is our Attendance and Family Liasion Officer. She works to improve attendance and follows up absences from school through, phone calls, letters, home visits and meetings. We also have an Attendance team here at Warren which includes:
Mrs Salam – Head of School
Mr Middleton – Executive Headteacher
Mrs Curtis – Office Manager
As attendance is statutory, we all have a duty to ensure that children are in school every day (unless of course, they are very ill). We aim to work with you in making this possible, by supporting you to ensure that children are attending school regularly.
Attendance rewards and incentives at Warren
| When? | What? |
| Weekly | Class attendance-opoly The top 2 classes get to play on the board for their class and win a reward for the following week and including prizes such as hot chocolate, extra playtime or lunchtime, cake, cinema afternoons, and a class camp afternoon if you land on ‘Mayfair’! |
| Half termly | A class reward for the best attendance for the half term – this is a trip out of school for the class |
| Termly | A prize draw for 96% or above attendance where the parent and child is reward: – £100 Voucher for a supermarket for the parent/carer – £100 Voucher for Smyths Toy Store for the child A prize draw to win a £100 Smyth Toy Store voucher for children with the most improved attendance in the term. |
Attendance communication
Attendance letter – We Are In This Together Sept 2023
Attendance Newsletter – Autumn 1
Attendance Newsletter – Autumn 2
Attendance monitoring
We look at the percentage of your child’s attendance regularly, which will fall into the following zones:
Green Zone – between 97% – 100% attendance – no action required.
We may contact parents whose child’s attendance is 96% or under to find out if we can support in improving the attendance.
Amber Zone – 91% – 96% attendance – you will receive a letter to inform you that your child’s attendance has fallen into the amber zone and if no improvement is made, invited in to school for a meeting.
Red Zone – below 90% attendance, this will automatically trigger a letter, a meeting and/or a visit. Absences will not be authorized for pupils whose attendance falls into the red zone without some medical evidence. A child whose attendance is below 90% is classed by the government as a persistent absentee.
The attendance team meet every 3-4 weeks to check if any child’s attendance has fallen below 90% and agreed actions will be put into place to support you in bringing your child to school.
We will also send you a letter every half term to update you on your child’s current attendance figure – this is to help you understand on a regularly basis what your child’s attendance.
We share the whole class attendance figures weekly on the academy newsletter and on the attendance board in the playground. The colours correlate with the zones listed above:
Absence from school
We use a text messaging service to contact you when your child is not at school. If your child is absent and we haven’t been informed why, Mrs Neat or Mrs Curtis will contact you by phone, text or e-mail. You will be able to reply to the text message to advise why your child is away from school.
It is very important to keep the school informed of any changes in your contact details as soon as possible. School must also be informed daily of absences.
It is parent’s responsibility to inform the school if your child is absent, failure to provide the school with a reason of absence could result in the absence being unauthorised.
Please remember that unless your child is ill, they should be in school every day. Please let the school know as soon as possible if your child is unable to come into school.
The school can unauthorise absences if
- No reason is provided.
- No medical evidence is provided for illness and appointments.
- Your child takes a whole day for an appointment when only a morning or afternoon is needed.
- The child’s absence is due to parents being unable to get their child to school.
- Medical evidence will be required if your child is absent for 3 consecutive days or more, failure to provide medical evidence will result in the absence being unauthorised.
- Families that take more than one day for a religious observance.
Lates
It is important that your child arrives to school daily and on time. If your child arrives late not only does it impact on their learning but also the disruption of the class. If a child arrives after 9.10am, they will receive a U code which is classed as an unauthorised absence (this means they have missed 20-30 minutes of learning as the school gates open at 8.40am).
Please see table below on how your child’s lateness can impact on their learning.
Holidays during term time
Following government guidelines, headteachers cannot grant any leave of absence unless in exceptional circumstances. If a leave of absence for the purpose of a holiday is taken it will be unauthorised.
The regulations do not allow schools to give approval after the leave of absence has been taken. Therefore any leave of absence that has not been applied for in advance will be unauthorised.
Penalty notices are fines between £60 and £120 imposed on parents. Penalty notices may be used where a pupil’s absence has not been authorised by the school. It is therefore very important that you keep us informed of the reason if your child is absent and that no periods of unauthorised leave are taken.