Attendance

At The Croft Primary, we recognise the importance of regular attendance. We aim to achieve 100% attendance; and there should ideally be no unauthorised absence. In order for us to achieve this please ensure that your child / children are in school on time every day (unless they are too ill to attend); book routine medical appointments out of school times apart from in an emergency and refrain from booking holidays in term time (there are approximately 71 days of school holidays not including weekends, which is 13 weeks so there are plenty of opportunities to take holidays during this time).

Department of Education advice states “Pupils need to attend school regularly to benefit from their education. Missing out on lessons leaves children vulnerable to falling behind. Children with poor attendance tend to achieve less in both primary and secondary school”. (DfE)

We expect all children at The Croft to attend school for every session that is available to them, unless the reason for their absence is one that meets the school’s criteria for authorising absences, e.g. illness, non-routine medical/dental appointments, religious observance, educational visits and other unavoidable causes. Poor attendance can seriously affect your child’s attainment, relationships with other children and confidence to attempt new activities and work alongside others.

The department for Education has published data on their website that clearly shows the link between attendance and attainment. This highlights the fact that there will be an impact on your child’s education if attendance is not consistently above 95% throughout their schooling.

We use the Local Authority expectation of at least 95% attendance as our benchmark for good attendance.

Pupils with less than an 90% attendance rate are classed by the Local Authority as a persistent absentee, regardless of whether the school has authorised the absence or not. This equates to 38 sessions or 19 days of absence across the year or as little as 5 or 7 sessions each term.

The NHS have provided the following useful advice on when to keep your child off school due to illness:

Should I Keep My Child Off School - NHS Guidance September 2023

Legal Duty as a Parent

The parent of any child has a legal duty to secure the regular attendance of that child. Failure to secure the regular attendance at school of a registered pupil is a criminal offence which can lead to prosecution of the parent(s) in a magistrates’ court.

Gloucestershire Local Authority have produced information leaflets which parents are advised to download and read. These leaflets are available by following the links below:

Leaflet for parents about attendance Leaflet for parents about Penalty NoticesLeaflet for parents about Prosecution for Non-attendance at school

Holidays During Term-Time

With effect from the 1st September 2013, the Department for Education changed the legislation about children's absence from school. The legislation makes it clear that more affordable holidays are not exceptional circumstances. Time off school for holidays is not a right.

Head teachers have the discretion to authorise holiday during term-time in exceptional circumstances. The school's Attendance Policy makes clear that the requirement for exceptional circumstances means that the vast majority of requests will be refused and, if the holiday is taken anyway, this will constitute unauthorised absence which may result in the issue of a penalty notice to each parent in respect of each absent child. 

Please click here to find a copy of our attendance policy.

Parents are requested at all times to contact the school office to discuss any absence from school. 

Parents are also reminded that we may follow up attendance with a number of additional measures, which could include contacting other agencies such as the Local Authority, Police and Gloucestershire Safeguarding Children's Board.