How do the Oak Hill team work  together to support school attendance? 

What are the times of the school day and what happens if my child is late? 

The school day and our children's learning starts at 8:35am when the first bell goes. There is a five minute window where the doors are kept open until 8:40am to allow time for you to drop off any siblings that you may have in other year groups. We expect that all pupils are in school by the second bell at 8:40am. Registers only remain open during AM registration, after which point pupils are marked absent.  

  

What is good attendance? 

Children need to be in school in order for them to achieve their potential and make progress in their learning. Every minute missed represents learning lost. Good attendance means being in school every day that children can possibly attend. We will write to you with updates around your child’s attendance regularly and class teachers will raise concerns with you so that we can support you and work together to improve your child’s attendance.  

  

What is poor attendance? 

Poor attendance means missing school when it is not absolutely necessary. For example, when a child is a little bit unwell but could still attend school, or missing lessons for appointments which could have been scheduled outside of school. Where pupils’ attendance is poor, the attendance support team who includes your class teacher, our attendance officer, our attendance lead or Assistant Headteachers will review what support is in place for your child and work together with families to improve this.  

We want to work with families to ensure all pupils have good attendance which enables them to succeed in school, so please contact us if you have concerns about your child’s attendance and we will work together to improve this. Where we are monitoring a child because of poor attendance, we may need to work with External support and the Local Authority to secure pathways to attendance improvements. Unfortunately, this can include issuing fines for non-attendance.  

In-line with new Local Authority guidelines, as a school we now monitor all pupils attendance. If your child’s attendance is regularly having day off, we will write to parents/carers to remind them of the importance of attendance at school. If there is no improvement, we may invite parents/carers to attend an ‘Attendance Meeting’ where we will discuss any barriers children may be facing that is stopping them from attending school and decide on strategies to ensure better and regular attendance.  

 

Attendance and lateness 

Whilst it is vital that your child attends school as often as possible, it is also vital to their education that they are on time each day. The beginning of a lesson is often the most important part where they get settled in and ready for the school day. Children are disadvantaged if they miss this and it can impact on the rest of their day. Therefore, as a school we also track children’s lateness and will write to you should we have concerns about your child’s lateness. Any lateness after 9:10am will be counted as an unauthorised absence and will add to their non attendance percentage.