Attendance and Persistent Absence

Each year, we set high standards and expectations for the attendance and punctuality of all our children in order to ensure all children have the best chance to develop, build friendships and progress academically. Poor attendance rates are known to often have an impact on academic achievement.

Since the start of the 2015/16 academic year, a pupil has been classified as a ‘persistent absentee’ if they miss 10% or more of their own possible sessions, rather than if they reach a standard threshold of absence sessions.  Meaning, that if a child’s overall absence rate is 10% or higher they will be classified as persistently absent.  This is monitored on a weekly and daily basis by School for all children.  Indeed, while the Department for Education’s guidance on attendance applies to children of statutory school age, we feel it is just as important for our children in Nursery and we apply the same challenge to ensure that our Nursery children develop good attendance habits from as young an age as possible.

The wellbeing and educational progress of our all our children is our priority, and we believe that a child’s regular attendance is hugely important in enabling them to succeed at school, develop friendships, social skills, values, life skills and cultural awareness.

We have always notified parents and carers if their child’s level of attendance is causing concern.  Very soon we will also be notifying any parent/carer if their child’s level of attendance is classed as ‘persistent absence’ based on 10% absence or higher as discussed above. In this notification we will ask you to contact Mrs Fallows, Learning Mentor, by phoning School (0151 487 5678) and selecting option 6.

We want regular attendance for all our children for the reasons discussed above and appreciate your support in ensuring this is the case for your child.