Aims

Westcliffe Primary School promotes attendance to ensure learners are safe and as part of ongoing safeguarding. By attending Westcliffe Primary School children have the opportunity to meet their educational outcomes, have supportive adults in their lives and are able to share any concerns they have with staff who have a genuine interest in their development.

We are committed to meeting our obligation with regards to school attendance through our whole-school culture and ethos that values good attendance, including:

• Promoting good attendance
• Reducing absence, including persistent (less than 90%) and severe absence (less than 50%)
• Ensuring every child has access to the education to which they are entitled
• Acting early to address patterns of absence
• Building strong relationships with families to ensure children have the support in place to attend school

We promote and support punctuality in attending the Westcliffe Primary School and all lessons.

What the Law States

The law entitles every child of compulsory school age to an efficient, full-time education suitable to their age, aptitude, and any special educational need they may have. It is the legal responsibility of every parent to make sure their child receives that education either by attendance at a school or by education otherwise than at a school. 

Where parents decide to have their child registered at school, they have an additional legal duty to ensure their child attends that school regularly. This means their child must attend every day that the school is open, except in a small number of allowable circumstances such as being too ill to attend or being given permission for an absence in advance from the school.

This is essential for pupils to get the most out of their school experience, including their attainment, wellbeing, and wider life chances. The pupils with the highest attainment at the end of key stage 2 have higher rates of attendance over the key stage compared to those with the lowest attainment. At KS2, pupils not meeting the expected standard in reading, writing and maths had an overall absence rate of 4.7%, compared to 3.5% among those meeting the expected standard. Moreover, the overall absence rate of pupils not meeting the expected standard was higher than among those meeting the higher standard (4.7% compared to 2.7%).

For the most vulnerable pupils, regular attendance is also an important protective factor and the best opportunity for needs to be identified and support provided. Research has shown associations between regular absence from school and a number of extrafamilial harms, including crime (the proportion of children that had been cautioned or sentenced for any offence that had ever been persistently absent was 81% and for serious violence offence was 85%).

Reporting Absences (a parent's/ carer's responsibility)

The child's parent/carer must notify the school on the first day of an unplanned absence as soon as practically possible by calling school on (01724 861602) after 8am or by reporting the absence using our ParentMail app. It is not appropriate for absences to be reported privately to staff directly to their own mobile phone. Staff have been instructed not to respond to communication sent directly to them, instead of school.

If a child is absent, and no reason is provided, then staff will attempt to make contact by phone and/ or ParentMail. This will include making attempts to each of the contacts supplied. If this proves unsuccessful, staff will then undertake a house visit to check on the safety and well-being of the absent child. In the event that staff are still unable to determine a reason, consideration will be given whether to following the school's safeguarding procedures. This may involve contacting other agencies, such as the police, or Children's Services.

Admin staff will routinely contact parents/carers if the absence is more than one day and no update has been provided .