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, families and external professionals to achieve the highest level of 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.
All staff have a respinsibility for maintaining good learner attendance. Our Atendance Lead is Suneeta Marecheau:
Email: [email protected]
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.
Attendance that is less than 95% will initiate contact and close monitoring with the Student Services Manager. We will endeavour to establish the reason for repeated absence and identify a plan of support to improve attendance.
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:
Ormiston Latimer 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.
Early Help link practitioner
The role of the link practitioner is to meet with you, or another identified member of the leadership team to review any needs in your pupil population (such as poor attendance, exclusions, social or emotional wellbeing needs) and to work with you to identify and agree potential pupils and their families who may benefit from additional support as part of early identification and intervention. The link practitioner would also be your main point of contact within the Family Hubs should you have any queries regarding support for the pupils in your school.
Gemma Folie
Ormsiton Latimer Early Help Practitioner
E-mail: [email protected]
Mobile: 07870 489395
Web: www.rbkc.gov.uk