Attendance and Punctuality

School Opening Hours

From September 2023, the timings will be as follows:

Action	Time
Classroom doors will open	8.45
Classroom doors will close and the school day will begin	8.55
Break	10.30 – 10.45
EYFS/KS1 Lunch	12.00 – 1.00
KS2 Lunch	12.15 – 1.00
End of school day	3.25

The school will be open for 32.5 hours per week.

Attendance

We would like to emphasise the important role you play in promoting your child’s attendance. A positive relationship between home and school is essential in promoting excellent attendance and punctuality. The vast majority of children at St Edmund's have excellent attendance. School will always help and support families who may be struggling with this aspect of school life.

What school expects from our families:

It is vitally important that each child attends school regularly.
Children should arrive on time every day wearing the correct school uniform and with the correct school equipment.
If your child is absent for any reason you MUST contact school straight away to explain why your child will be absent. This can can done via telephone. If not, we have a duty of care to contact you to ensure your child's safety.
Children should be collected on time at the end of the day by a responsible person.
An understanding that holidays will not be authorised during term time.

The school day starts at 8.45am for all children.

Classroom doors are open from 8.45am through to 8.55am each morning to enable our teachers to welcome their children into school. This is an important pastoral time at the start of the day. Operating a ten minute window also reduces congestion on site ensuring the safety of our children as they arrive at school.

If your child arrives after 8.55am they will need to enter school via the main office. If they arrive after 9.30 am they will be marked as 'late after registers have closed' and this means that they are deemed to have been absent for the session. This is recorded as an unauthorised absence.

At our school we aim for 100% attendance. When the attendance of an individual child falls below 96%, school will start to monitor more closely the amount of time that child has had off school and the reasons behind the absence. School will work together with families to try to improve attendance. If this is not possible, school may use strategies such as parenting contracts, attendance panels and referrals to the local authority attendance team in order to support parents in improving attendance.

The Department for Education has determined that from September 2015, a pupil becomes a persistent absentee when their attendance falls below 90%. When attendance nears this level children have already missed significant amounts of schooling; meaning that their educational progress is at risk. We need parents' full support in ensuring that attendance does not reach this level. Parents may be asked to attend an Attendance Panel meeting to discuss their child’s attendance.

Changes to Regulation which came into force on September 1st 2013 have limited the extent to which Headteachers can authorise leave of absence for pupils during term time.
Prior to the changes, the regulations were 'permissive', allowing Headteachers to authorise leave if they felt the circumstances surrounding the request were 'special' or 'exceptional'.
The changes amended the wording of the regulation governing leave, making it a 'prohibitive' regulation which now states:

Regulation 7:
(1A) Subject to paragraph (2), leave of absence shall not be granted unless-
(a) an application has been made in advance to the proprietor by a parent with whom the pupil normally resides; and
(b) the proprietor, or a person authorised by the proprietor in accordance with paragraph (1), considers that leave of absence should be granted due to the exceptional circumstances relating to that application.

Requests for leave in term time:

All requests for exceptional leave in term time should be made prior to any arrangements or bookings being made.
Parents must complete the request for exceptional leave form and provide supporting evidence if they are asking for the exceptional leave to be authorised.

In considering the request we will also look at various factors such as:

The timing of the request:

When a pupil’s attendance record already includes any level of unauthorised absence.

Where a pupil’s attendance rate is already a cause for concern, or could become concerning, as a result of taking exceptional leave.

Other periods of exceptional leave which the pupil may have had, either during the current or previous academic years.

Any period of exceptional leave taken without the agreement of the school, or in excess of that agreed, will be classed as unauthorised and may attract sanctions such as a penalty notice.