Attendance

Information

SCHOOL ATTENDANCE POLICY

Constant monitoring of children's attendance

Mrs Hawley (Attendance Officer) and Mrs Knapp (Principal) closely monitor children’s attendance at The Sir Donald Bailey Academy.

Your child’s time at school is very valuable – they only get the chance once! It’s therefore very important that they miss as little school as possible. We do realise that absences due to illness or medical matters can be unavoidable and school is not the place for a child to be if they are unwell.

If your child is not going to be coming into school, we ask you to phone the school as soon as possible or email attendance@sirdonaldbailey.co.uk on the first day of absence or text the school on 07786201170 to let us know they won’t be in. If you are experiencing any difficulties which are affecting your ability to bring your child to school, come and see us. We are here to help!

The Sir Donald Bailey Academy has an Attendance Target this year of 97%. Last Academic Year there was a 0.3% increase from 96.2% to 96.5%. We would like to once again this school year build on this improvement and reach our target of 97%.

ATTENDANCE REWARD SYSTEM

Promoting attendance and punctuality

We want to reward children who have good attendance and we have a number of incentives throughout the year groups.

Weekly
Termly

From September 2013 the Principal no longer has the authority to authorise absences for the purpose of taking a family holiday except in exceptional circumstances. We therefore ask parents and carers to avoid booking holidays during term time. The school will be closed for an extra ‘Inset’ week each year. This will give parents/carers the opportunity to take a holiday during term time when there would be potential cost savings. As a result of this there will be a zero tolerance approach towards parents taking their children out of school at any other time. If however you believe there are exceptional reasons why your child needs to be absent from school you need to complete a Leave of Absence Application Form, which is available from our Attendance Officer.

A child who is absent from school for 2 weeks (10 days) will have less than 95% attendance for that year before taking into account any further days lost due to illness.

Where a child’s level or pattern of absences becomes a concern we will discuss this with the parent or carer and may involve the Targeted Support Service.

Roles & Responsibilities

The Sir Donald Bailey Academy

Roles & Responsibilities

Parents & Carers

Important Statistics