ABSENCE
Illness
If your child is going to be absent from school due to illness, then please inform the office before 9am in the morning, and let us know why your child is going to be absent, and when you expect them to return. If your child is off for more than one day, we must still be informed each day of your child's absence until they return to school.
Please note in instances of sickness and/or diarrhoea, please keep your child off school for 48 hours, timed from the last occurrence.
Please call 01208 815900 or email the school at hello@stbreock.org.uk
Medication
We will administer prescribed medication to children if:
- They are handed in to the office with a Prescribed Medicines Form.These are available from the front porch. Instructions on the bottle is not sufficient.
- The medicine is labelled with the child's name and dose
- The timing of the dose is not critical
- Parents should collect medicines from the office at the end of the school day
A member of your child's class team will administer the medicine. Where medicine has to be given four times a day, it would be helpful if you gave one dose before school and two after, leaving us to give one only in the middle of the day.
Un-prescribed medicines will not be administered by school and is left to the discretion of the Head of School. If needed for temperature control your child should be at home until they have recovered. However, on occasion where a child has an injury requiring pain medication we can arrange for this to be administered.
The above does not apply to asthma inhalers which often need to be kept with the child. Parents need to complete our Asthma form to enable this. It is available from the school office. Parents of children with asthma should encourage them to learn to take responsibility for their own medication.
Holidays
If you are taking your child out of school for a holiday, or any other event, then an absence request form must be filled in prior to the absence.
Please note that it is not school policy to authorise any holiday during the school term. Absences will be recorded as 'unauthorised' on the register.
We check attendance every half term and monitor those children who fall below 95%. In the first instance we will telephone you to discuss attendance concerns and notify you by letter. If attendance does not improve we will send you a second letter asking you to make an appointment with the Head of School. If attendance continues to be of concern we will discuss it with our Education Welfare Officer, who we meet with regularly, who will take further action as required.
Medical Appointments
If you need to take your child out of school for any length of time to attend a medical appointment, then the school office must be notified in advance. We also ask to see the letter confirming the date and time of the medical appointment. Please ensure that, where possible, medical appointments are made outside of school time.
ATTENDANCE
The threshold for persistent absenteeism is set at 10%. This is based on evidence that links persistent absenteeism to children not attaining their potential and it having an ongoing impact on their progress in school.This amounts to 19 school days in a year. This is a very tight target and is linked to holidays in term time and indiscriminate days off.
The guidance for issuing penalty notices for unauthorised absence states that:
Penalty Notices can only be issued in cases where a pupil of compulsory school age has been absent from school and the absence has not been authorised
Or
Where a pupil arrives persistently late
The minimum level of absence necessary is 10 or more school sessions (5 days) in any 100 day period.
Prosecution under the Education Act should be considered as an alternative where 20 or more sessions of unauthorised absence occur.
It is therefore essential that all requests for ‘leave of absence’ are made well in advance to enable time to check reasons, evidence and previous attendance information. Authorisation will not be given unless there are extenuating reasons for the time out of school.
This guidance is intended to be used in tackling parentally condoned absence where it is reasonable to expect that a parent can ensure the child’s regular attendance but are not willing to take responsibility for doing so.
Please help us and your child by ensuring that their attendance remains above 96%. The illustration below is helpful in understanding the threshold.
