Attendance / Term Time Absence

You may already be aware that the Department for Education (DfE) released new statutory guidance in February 2024, ‘Working Together to Improve School Attendance’ which came into force from 19th August 2024. All schools in England will be required to follow the guidance, therefore we want to ensure that you are aware of what this means.

Once a child is enrolled at a school, parents/carers are by law responsible for ensuring they attend school regularly. The new statutory guidance has created a legal obligation for all schools to promote attendance positively, take early action to prevent absences and offer support to families when exploring absence from school to secure the child’s right to access their education. It also emphasises the importance of good attendance being a key driver for learning, achievement, and personal success but whilst recognising that often, support is required to achieve good attendance. The guidance expects us to form positive, strong relationships with families and work together along with external services to support children.

As stated in the guidance, we have robust monitoring/analysis of data to identify trends and patterns of absence to enable us to have conversations with you as early as possible. It is also important that you are aware the guidance stipulates that you must request all absence in advance, or in the case of illness/emergency, you must notify the school office of the absence at the earliest opportunity, as after 5 days, we are unable to retrospectively authorise any absences that have occurred so it would be recorded as an unauthorised absence and must remain so.

There are also some changes being made to penalty notice fines for term time absences. For further information regarding these changes, please see the information from North Lincolnshire Council. Our attendance policy will be updated to reflect the changes.

We hope this information is helpful and would reiterate, we welcome you to take the lead on starting conversations at any point to work with us on supporting your child as we want what is best for them too. If you would like to discuss your child’s attendance please contact either Mrs T Bass or Mrs Stuart via email at parents@bushfieldinfants.co.uk or telephone 01724 842829.

Leave of Absence (Holidays in Term Time)

The law states there is no longer any entitlement for parents/carers to take their child out of school for a leave of absence during term time.

Head Teachers may only grant leave of absence for exceptional circumstances and an application must be made in writing or by completing a leave of absence form, which can be obtained from the school office. Evidence must be provided to support any request considered as an exceptional circumstance. Leave for the purpose of a family holiday is not considered an exceptional circumstance.

If an application is refused, each Parent/Carer may be issued with a Fixed Penalty Notice for taking their child out of school without authorisation from the Head Teacher.

Failure to pay a Penalty Notice or if a Penalty Notice does not act as a deterrent and a child continues to miss his/her education, then the Education Inclusion Service may consider legal proceedings in the Magistrates Court.

Lateness

Children can arrive at school from 8.45am. If your child arrives at school after the register at 9.00am they will receive a late mark and you must sign them into school at the main office. Lateness to school can be very unsettling for children and disruptive for the class.

Persistent lateness may also be marked in our school registers as unauthorised and can also be considered as a failure to secure regular attendance.

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