Attendance

The Governors and staff at Burley Gate School are united in their belief that regular school attendance is the key to enabling children to maximise the educational opportunities available to them. Helping them to become emotionally resilient, confident and competent adults who are able to realise their full potential and make a positive contribution to their community. We set high expectations about attendance from Nursery to Year 6.  If your child has a place at our Nursery School we expect your child to attend.  Your child can only learn if they are at school.

It is the child’s right to attend, not their parent’s right to keep their child at home.

Burley Gate School values all children. As set out in this policy we will work with families to identify the barriers to achieving and maintaining excellent attendance and offer the right service at the right time to try to resolve any difficulties.

We will monitor attendance and use attendance data to identify any patterns of concern, whilst also celebrating success!  Attendance concerns will be raised with parents if reasons are not known by the school, e.g. a long period of illness, this information may be shared with the Local Authority following concerns.  Where we have concerns, or lack of engagement from families to improve attendance, we will follow the schools escalated approach to improving attendance.  The schools escalated approach is child-centred and prioritises support and developing strong working relationships with families.  We will use the early help process to provide support prior to escalation and consider how we can work with families to enable your child to access their right to education.

Our aim is to always to work in partnership with parents and any referral for consideration of a penalty notice is deemed to be a last resort at Burley Gate School.  Attendance figures for each child will be reported to parents as part of the annual report, we will also share a child’s attendance profile if we have concerns regarding a child’s attendance.  Throughout the school year we will report on the overall attendance figures for children groups, this will be closely monitored for support and reported to the Governing Body. 

Attendance Support

We will always support children during each stage of our Attendance Support Map.  If there is lack of engagement, or concerns regarding the reason for absence, we will follow the Attendance Map to ensure we prioritise a child’s learning and right to education.

Where a child’s attendance improves we will write to Parents to alert them to this.