Becket Primary School

Why is Attendance so important?

For some parents, 90% may seem like an acceptable level of attendance, but the reality is that 90% attendance means your child will miss half a school day each week or 19 days of school during the year – that’s nearly 4 school weeks!

If your child has 90% attendance each year they are at our school they will miss a total of 28 weeks – which is half a school year lost!

Give your child the best start in life – every school day counts

Why is it important that my child attends school on time every day?

Arriving late to school:

• Can cause embarrassment for the child
• Can cause disruption to the rest of the class
• Can make it harder for the child to settle
• Impacts on the child’s learning, progress and achievement

Being 15 minutes late each day during an entire school year is the same as missing two whole weeks of school.

What happens if we are worried about your child’s school attendance?

Good attendance is 95% or more, if attendance is below 90% the child is classified as ‘persistently absent’ from school and this will have a negative impact on the child learning.

If we have concerns about your child’s attendance, we will contact you so that we can offer support and work together to make sure your child’s attendance is good. We employ an Education Welfare Officer (EWO) who will also work with families if there is concern about school attendance.

What you can do to help your child?

• Make sure your child comes to school regularly and punctually.
• Please support us in our efforts to encourage punctuality, good attendance and behaviour.
• Take an interest in your child’s school work
• If your child is off school, it is very important you phone on the first morning of absence to tell us why. Staff will be concerned if they do not hear from you.
• If your child starts missing school, work with the school without delay to put things right. Communication is very important. 

The School Day

The gates open at 8:30.a.m, and children are encouraged to filter into the classrooms from the playground. Any late comers must enter the building through the main reception and be signed in to the Late Book.

Lessons begin at 8:55am, is therefore important that children are punctual so that they do not miss any lesson time.

If your child is ill and unable to attend school please contact us on the first day of illness. If we do not hear from you then the school will call to check why your child is absent. This helps to ensure the safety of our pupils.

Where children’s attendance causes a concern this will be referred to the school’s Educational Welfare Officer (EWO). The EWO works closely with the school and may visit you if your child has frequent or long absences. This could lead to a fine or prosecution.

If you need to take your child out of school during the day for an appointment please let the school know in advance. A verbal message from the child is not acceptable and children must be collected by a known adult.

Changes to Leave of Absence

The Government is extremely concerned about the high levels of absences from schools that is attributed to parents taking their children on holiday during term time. Hence the need for new statutory regulations that have been imposed by the Department of Education.

The Minister for Education has recently announced that from September 1st 2013 schools can no longer grant leave of absence during term time unless there are explicit exceptional circumstances.

Consequences for parents taking children on holiday in term time which are not authorised by the school may result in a Penalty Notice of £60 per parent per child being issued by the Local Authority.

• Penalty Notice for Parents (pdf).

Following this national guidance, the Governing Body of Becket Primary School has agreed that school will no longer authorise any holidays in term time. We understand that this will be a concern to parents but we have to adhere to the new statutory regulations. All schools in the country will be similarly affected.

Thank you for your understanding in this matter; we all need to work together to ensure that children’s learning progress is not affected by poor attendance.

For further information regarding attendance and punctuality please visit the Attendance and Punctuality Guide for Parents and Carers page.