We believe that every child has a right to education. To enable this to happen, we need to ensure that all children are in school at every opportunity to allow them to reach their full potential. Irregular attendance can seriously disrupt your child’s learning and emotional wellbeing, leading to under achievement. We want to avoid this where possible. Good attendance and punctuality are essential throughout life, and we want to embed this into children from a young age. When children attend school regularly, their experience of school life is enriched, both educationally and socially. Parents, carers, staff and children must work together to ensure excellent attendance is achieved.

“Improving attendance is everyone’s business. The barriers to accessing education are wide and complex, both within and beyond the school gates, and are often specific to individual pupils and families. Yet being in school and ready to learn is crucial to pupils’ attainment, wellbeing, and wider life chances. That’s why improving attendance remains a top priority across government.” 
Robin Walker MP Minister of State for School Standards

Essential information

Arrival at school

Pupils can arrive at school from 8.40-8.50am. Children should go straight into classrooms. Doors/gates will be locked at 8.50am. Pupils arriving during registration, i.e. after 8:50am will be marked late.

Pupils arriving after the registration period is over, after 9am, will be marked with an unauthorised absence mark unless there is an acceptable reason for lateness when they will be marked with an authorised absence mark.

Illness

Parents are requested to ring the school on the first day to inform us of any absence before 8:45am on 01452 881962, selecting option 1 and leaving a message on the absence voicemail, or alternatively you can email admin@waterwells.academy Please state your child’s name, their class and the reason for their absence, giving specific details. You should continue to call in by 8.45am each day your child is absent from school unless a valid reason has been given for their prolonged absence, i.e. operation, chicken pox. Please read, “Should I keep my child off school” leaflet at the end of this page.

If your child has been sick or had diarrhoea, they must be absent from School for 48 hours after their last episode. Please read, “Should I keep my child off school” leaflet at the end of this page.

Parents/carers may be asked to provide medical evidence of illnesses if there is a prolonged absence or numerous separate illnesses

Further Information

Stuggling to get your child to school?

We know that sometimes things can become difficult and overwhelming. Please contact the school for help and advice on attendance. Remember that you have a duty to ensure your child attends school. Please see our attendance policy for further information.

• Policies

Holidays

Holidays during term time will not be authorised. Parents are notified of school term time dates in advance to ensure that these can be avoided when booking a holiday. Holidays taken during term time may result in a Penalty Notice being issued.

Appointments

Medical appointments should be booked outside of school hours wherever possible. If an appointment occurs within the school day, please bring your child back in as quickly as possible afterwards to minimise lost learning time. We ask that you provide evidence of these appointments.

Reports

The attendance statistics for each pupil will be part of the annual school reports plus the termly summary reports.

If a child of compulsory school age who is registered at a school fails to attend regularly at school, then the parent is guilty of an offence under Section 444(1) of the Education Act 1996. There is a risk that if your child’s attendance remains at the current level, a referral may be made to the local authority, who will start a legal process.

A copy of our full School Attendance Policy can be found under our policies section and other useful information under our parent’s hub section.

Parents - a few attendance thoughts…..

Children with an average attendance of 92% will have missed over half a year’s schooling by the time they leave year 6.

Children with an average attendance of 85% will have missed more than a year’s schooling by the time they leave Year 6.

Children who are five minutes late on a regular basis will miss the equivalent of a month’s schooling by the time they leave Year 6.