Attendance

Attendance, punctuality and absence

There are strong and well evidenced links between excellent attendance and excellent student achievement. At our academy, we work with students and families to achieve 100% attendance.

While illness and injury are an unfortunate part of everyday life, it is important that they do not hamper your child’s education and we encourage all students to be in all lessons. Necessary medical or personal reasons for absence must be kept to a minimum and parents/carers should follow the absence procedure below.

Parents/carers should follow one of the following steps to report an absence. We request that where possible, planned absences are reported in advance, rather than on the day.

  • Email the Attendance Officer: [email protected]
  • Tel: 01243 546854 – a 24-hour answer machine you can call, any time, day or night
  • Call in personally to reception and leave a message for the Attendance Officer
  • Give a note signed by a parent/carer to a sibling to pass on to the Attendance Officer

Attendance that is less than 96% will initiate contact and close monitoring with either the tutor or Director of Learning. If there is a medical or personal reason where our support could enable your child to be in lessons, please let us know so that any time out of education is minimised.

Non-urgent medical appointments should be scheduled for outside of the academy day. If, for any reason, this is not possible, the time outside of lessons should be minimal. The absence must still be reported as per the absence procedure.

It has always been our policy to refuse holidays during term time. This is done to give students the best possible opportunities for learning.

In addition, new amendments introduced by the government came into force on 1st September 2013, concerning requests for holiday during term time. The Government has decided that headteachers will no longer be able to authorise family holidays during term time except for limited cases with very exceptional circumstances.

Further information is available at www.education.gov.uk.

In view of the changes, a summary of the position on term time holidays, based on government legislation, is below:

  • The current law does not give any entitlement to parents to take their child on holiday during term time.
  • In exceptional circumstances, an application for leave of absence may be submitted and the Principal must be satisfied that the circumstances warrant the granting of leave.
  • If a holiday request is not authorised by the Principal and parents do take their child on holiday during term time, the absence will be recorded as unauthorised and a Fixed Penalty Notice (fine) will be issued.
  • Student absences which are reported as illness, but are subsequently found to be due to holiday, will also be recorded as unauthorised and a Fixed Penalty Notice (fine) might be issued.

Ormiston Six Villages Academy, together with the Local Authority, believes that attendance is vital. It is because of the link between attendance and attainment that the Government has placed a priority on reducing all forms of absence and has introduced Penalty Notice fines to parents whose children are absent without the education provider’s authorisation. Research suggests that low attendance has a detrimental impact on achievement.

We operate a simple and robust procedure regarding punctuality. The academy day starts at 8.20am and students should aim to be lined up by 8.17am for roll call to be taken at 8.20am. Students arriving after that time will be marked as late. They should sign in at reception and if an authorised reason for lateness is not provided by a parent/carer, then the student will be expected to complete a break time detention.

As many students travel in with parents, it is important that parents are aware of this and ensure that their children are dropped off in time. If a child is late to a lesson, there will be a consequence with the class teacher.