Attendance

At Langley Park Primary Academy, excellent attendance and punctuality is our aim for each and every pupil. Learning opportunities are maximised when good attendance is achieved and you, as parents and carers, play a vital role in promoting a good attitude towards attendance and punctuality. We therefore ask for your support in ensuring your child is present at every opportunity and arrives at school on time. There is a high correlation between good attendance and successful academic achievement; regular and punctual school attendance helps a child develop responsibility, self-discipline and fosters the skills necessary for the future.

School starts promptly at 08.55 and doors/gates open at 08:30. Please ensure your child arrives to school on time and is in class and ready to learn. 

If your child is absent, you have a duty to inform the academy office on 01622 250880 by 08:30 each and every day that they are absent. If the school does not hear from you, office staff will attempt to contact you for a reason.

Please be aware that if your child is absent from school and no reason can be established for their absence then this will be recorded as unauthorised until such a time that your child returns to school. Please provide absence information to academy office staff and not to class teachers, as they do not have time to share this with office staff before the school day begins.

If you call the academy office and staff are unable to answer the phone at the time of your call then you should leave a message providing your child's full name, their class and the reason for their absence.

As we reach the end of Term 1, we have issued the following certificates:

These were handed out in class today unobtrusively and, if your child received one of these certificates, they should feel very proud of their achievement.

Well done to all children who received a certificate!

Attendance Shop

In early October, information was sent out to all families regarding the introduction of an Attendance Shop at Langley Park Primary Academy to further celebrate good attendance. The shop will be offered at the end of each long term (Christmas, Easter and Summer) to those pupils with at least 96% attendance and no unauthorised absences. Children will be able to access  it during the academy day and pick an item of their choice to celebrate their attendance achievement. As a reminder, please refer to the below list of common attendance codes and their associated reasons for absence to help your child avoid any unauthorised/unnecessary absences. 

Common codes you may see on your child's attendance record explained:

L: This code reflects that a child has arrived late to school. All schools must have a policy that explains what time registers open and close. At LPPA, our morning register closes at 09:15, therefore if you child arrives after the gates closes but before this time, they are marked with an L code. This is an authorised late mark.

U: If your child arrives after the morning registers have closed at 09:15, they will be marked with a U code. This code can severely affect a child's attendance if a pattern of lateness after registers have closed occurs; the U code actually reflects an absence for the whole morning session. This is an unauthorised late mark and can therefore contribute towards your child accumulating 10 sessions of unauthorised absence which triggers a Penalty Fine to be issued by the Local Authority. The U code is perhaps the easiest unauthorised attendance code to avoid by ensuring that you bring your child to school on time each day.

M: The M code represents an authorised absence and is used to represent when your child is absent from school due to attending a medical appointment i.e. an emergency GP appointment or dental appointment. Non-emergency routine medical appointments should always be made for outside of school hours. As per our Attendance Policy, you may be asked to provide evidence of a medical appointment in order that we can apply an authorised M code to your child's absence - where this is not provided upon request, your child's absence may be unauthorised. Please also note that we are unable to authorise a whole day's absence from school for an appointment taking place in the morning or afternoon and so your child should always attend school before and/or after any appointments to avoid any unauthorised sessions of absence and to maximise learning time in school where appointments during school hours cannot be avoided.

I: This code represents an authorised absence as a result of illness. If your child is regularly absent from school due to illness that is unrelated to an underlying ongoing health condition, and attendance begins to be severely affected, it is in your best interest to provide appointment evidence of further absence as a result of illness i.e. an appointment card/letter or prescription from your child's GP. You will be advised in writing if this is to be requested for your child and, on any occasion following this where appointment evidence is not provided, your child's absence will be unauthorised. Please refer to our Attendance Leaflet to familiarise yourself with those illness that require your child to be absent and those that do not.

O: This code represents a general unauthorised absence for which another code is not appropriate. This is commonly used when a child is absent but we receive no communication from the parent/carer and are therefore unable to establish a reason for the absence. This is easily avoidable and we offer a number of ways by which you can contact the academy office to provide this - by phone, email, our designated absence text facility and the My Child at School messaging system. The O code can also be used on occasions when the academy is not satisfied with the reason given for a child's absence from school.

G: This code represents unauthorised sessions of absence as a result of a child being taken out of school during term time for the purpose of a holiday. Statutory attendance processes do not permit schools to grant retrospective approval for absence as a result of holidays; if leave of absence is not applied for in advance, any absence as a result of a holiday must legally be recorded as unauthorised.

When children are in school every day and on time, they are taking full advantage of the educational opportunities offered at the academy as part of their learning journey.

Current Attendance and Punctuality Statistics