And now a word from 

Mrs Richards...

School Attendance   

Going to school every day is the single most important part of your child’s education. Students learn new things at school every day – missing school puts them behind. We all want our students to get a great education, and the building blocks for a great education begin with students coming to school each and every day. 

If students miss school regularly, they miss out on learning the fundamental skills that will set them up for success in the later years of school. There is no safe number of days for missing school – each day a student misses puts them behind and can affect their educational outcomes. Each missed day is associated with progressively lower achievement in numeracy, writing and reading. 

Main reasons for school absences

• Illness – There are always times when students need to miss school, such as when they are ill. It is vital that students are only away on the days they are genuinely sick. 
• Family holidays – Many of our students are lucky enough to be able to go on fabulous holidays and these can be important as family experience and also as valuable life experiences. Please understand though that children will miss important learning during extended holidays.  Teachers will happily provide an outline of the concepts that they will be covering, and students will be asked to read and write whilst they are away, but explicit instruction will be missed.
• “Day off” – Please think carefully before letting your child have a “day off” for things such as birthdays.  The children love to hear their class sing Happy Birthday to them and to collect birthday stickers from teachers. Students should be encouraged to value coming to school every day. 
• Truancy – This is when students choose not to go to school without their parent’s permission. There can be many reasons for truancy. The best way to address this is for schools and parents to work together but this is more a secondary school issue. 
• School refusal - School refusing children will experience significant emotional distress not only when going to school but also at the thought of going to school; they may be absent from school for weeks or even months at a time. School refusal differs from truancy as children generally stay home with the knowledge of the parents and despite their best efforts to encourage their child to go to school.