Thorns Primary Attendance
Regular attendance at school is crucial in raising standards of education and in ensuring every child can meet their full potential. Missing out on lessons leaves children vulnerable to falling behind. Children with poor attendance tend to achieve less in both primary and secondary school.
The Government expects:
- Schools and Local Authorities to
- Reduce absence including persistent absence
- Ensure every pupil has access to full-time education to which they are entitled
- Act early to address any patterns of absence
- Parents to perform their legal duty by ensuring their children of compulsory school age who are registered at school attend regularly and are punctual to their lessons.
Thorns Primary school takes the responsibility for pupils' attendance very seriously.
There is an expectation that over the course of an academic year a child's attendance will be 96% or more, which is the national average and governments expected figure. Absence that falls below 90% is categorised by the government as persistent absence. With this in mind Thorns Primary will be taking the following action:
- When a child's absence falls to 95%, parents will be notified
- When a child's absence falls below 93%, parents will be notified that all further absences will be unauthorised without supporting medical evidence.
- If 18 unauthorised absences have been recorded during a 6 week period, a referral to the Local Authority Education Investigation Service will be made and this may lead to a fixed penalty fine. All persons defined as a parent will be liable for a fine.