We work closely with the Local Authority Education Inclusion Department to try to reduce unauthorised absences. We have a first day response policy, whereby we text parents on the first day of absence, if they have not informed us by 9.30am, requesting a reason for the absence, we will follow up by a phone call. We also monitor the lateness of pupils and send out termly letters to parents if their child’s attendance is below 90%.
We encourage family holidays to be taken during the school holidays but stress to parents that we no longer authorise holidays during term time, all holidays inline with cluster will be FPN’d if the child's previous rolling attendance was below 95%, holidays longer than 5 days will automatically be FPN’d.
The Local Authority have now started to issue Fixed Penalty Notices to families who have taken unauthorised holidays. The Governing Body in conjunction with the Headteacher and attendance officer and LA set the school annual attendance targets. Our target for last year was 95%, actual attendance was 89.67%.
The target set for the forthcoming academic year is 92%.