Attendance

1. Home
2. Information
3. Attendance

Working together to improve school attendance

We are committed to meeting our obligations with regards to school attendance, including those laid out in the Department for Education’s (DfE’s) statutory guidance on working together to improve school attendance, through our whole-school culture and ethos that values good attendance, including:

• Setting high expectations for the attendance and punctuality of all pupils
• Promoting good attendance and the benefits of good attendance
• Reducing absence, including persistent and severe absence
• Ensuring every pupil has access to the full-time education to which they are entitled
• Acting early to address patterns of absence
• Building strong relationships with families to make sure pupils have the support in place to attend school

Nottingham City Attendance Campaign: 'Miss School, Miss Out'

We are working in colloboration with the PEIA Attendance Project to improve attendance . As part of the PEIA Nottingham Attendance Project, four videos have been created to help Parents/Carers to understand the importance of their child/children attending school, and the impact that being absent can have on their child's learning and wellbeing. The videos are short, and compliment the 'Miss School, Miss Out' campaign for Nottingham City.

Please click on the links below which will take you straight to the videos:

English Attendance Video

Punjabi Attendance Video

Polish Attendance Video

Arabic Attendance Video

Everyone Attends, Attend Every Day

A strong school community is one where all children are present in school, on time, every day. By attending every day, your child will experience a wonderful number of educational opportunities. We do understand that each family's circumstances are unique and you may sometimes be unsure as to whether your child should attend school.

At NUAST we will actively promote and encourage students to attend everyday so that they do not miss out on learning opportunities both within the curriculum and wider curriculum. We will give high priority to communicating with parents and pupils the importance of regular and punctual attendance. We recognise that parents have a vital role to play and that there is a need to establish strong home-school links and communications systems that can be utilised whenever there is concern about attendance.

If children do not attend school everyday they may:

• Struggle to keep up with school work. In a busy school day it is difficult for schools to find the extra time to help a child catch up.
• Miss out on the social side of school life. Poor attendance can affect children’s ability to make and keep friendships, a vital part of growing up.
• Setting good attendance patterns will also help your child later on. Employers want to recruit people who are reliable. Children who have a poor school attendance record may have less chance of getting a good job.

NUAST will:

• Work towards ensuring that all pupils feel supported, valued and feel a sense of belonging to our school.
• Encourage parents/carers to be actively involved in promoting their child's attendance.
• Regularly inform parents/carers and pupils informing them of their child's attendance and how many days they have missed.
• Inform parents/carers when an absence has not been authorised.
• Promote positive staff attitudes to pupils returning following an absence.
• Ensure regular evaluation of our attendance policy and procedures by the head teacher and Governors.
• Consistent and vigorous monitoring and evaluation procedures will be in place.

How do we promote attendance at NUAST?

Attendance to school is the number one priority for achievement. Therefore, we reward pupils by using the following:

• Feed a family Friday - where all students with a 100% are entered into a prize draw every Friday for one of two £30 Just Eat Vouchers.
• High value prizes every term.
• Half termly rewards assemblies.
• Recognition every Monday morning in the whole school online assembly.
• Attendance challenges - for example, the last 25 days of term with great prizes at the end.

Requests to be absent from learning (holidays etc)

The guidance to schools states that "Head teachers should not grant leave of absence unless there are exceptional circumstances. The application must be made in advance and the head teacher must be satisfied that there are exceptional circumstances based on the individual facts and circumstances of the case which warrant the leave".

If you need to apply for leave, please complete the form on this link and email it to anarendrakumar@nuast.org

Punctuality

Being on time is vital. Arriving late at school can be very disruptive for your child, the teacher and other children in the class.

Students should arrive in school before 8.25am for the start of registration. Any students arriving after registers close will be recorded as an unauthorised absence. Five late marks after registers have closed in any 6 week period could result in a £60 fixed penalty fine or a summons to court.

What does the law say?

By law, all children of compulsory school age (between 5 and 16) must get a suitable, full-time education. As a parent, you are responsible for making sure this happens, either by registering your child at a school or by making other arrangements which provide a suitable full-time education.

Once your child is registered at school you are responsible for making sure he or she attends regularly. If your child fails to attend regularly—even if they miss school without you knowing—the Local Authority may take legal action against you.

The Local Authority Education Welfare Department is responsible for making sure that parents fulfil their responsibility to ensure their registered children regularly attend school or any alternative provision provided. They can be contacted on 0115 876 2965 or educationwelfareservices@nottinghamcity.gov.uk.

If you think you may need to take your child out of school, discuss the reasons with us as soon as possible.

Why would we unauthorise an absence?

There may be times when your child has to miss school because they are ill. This is to be expected and for this you should follow the school procedure for notifying illness. However, in order to provide further guidance for parents/carers as to what would be considered an unauthorised absence we have provided the following guidance:

Please click on the link provided which will take you to our attendance policy and scroll down for the reasons why an absence would not be authorised: Click here for Attendance Policy

Children may also have to attend a medical or dental appointment in school time. All appointments are requested to be made outside of the school day wherever possible but if an appointment has to be made during the school day, we expect the student to be in before and/or after the appointment, depending on the time. If a student is absent for the full day we will mark them as unauthorised for either the AM or PM roll call.

Any absences must be requested as far in advance as possible and can only be authorised by the school.

Holidays

All parents must complete a holiday form, however NUAST does not authorise holidays, in line with Government's policies - https://www.gov.uk/school-attendance-absence

Holidays during term time are marked as G. Exceptional circumstances would be authorised at the discretion of the Headteacher (i.e. service personnel on leave after returning from overseas duties) however, even then we would take into consideration what year the student is in and whether any exams or assessments are taking place at the requested time of absence.

Parents/Carers need to be aware that we will request a ‘Penalty Notice’ for any requested holiday. If found that a student was removed for the purpose of a holiday without permission/notification from parents/carers, a ‘Penalty Notice’ will also be requested, even after the pupil has returned from the holiday.

What happens if your child does not attend school regularly?

As a school we are responsible by law for reporting poor attendance to the Local Authority Education Welfare Department. As a parent, you are committing an offence if you fail to make sure that your child attends school regularly, even if they are missing school without your knowledge, and may be issued with a penalty notice or taken to court.

Under the new National Framework for penatly notices, when a student reaches the threshold of 10 sessions of unauthorised absences in a rolling period of 10 school weeks, all schools must now consider issuing a penalty notice. Please see attendance policy for further information on this.

What might the impact of poor attendance be on your child?

Research has shown that children who are not in school are the most vulnerable and are easily drawn into crime. Those children who play truant are more likely to offend than those that do not. The following graph shows the link between percentage attendance and GCSE grades 9- 4. The higher the attendance percentage the higher the number of GCSEs achieved.

Being late for school reduces learning time. If your child is 5 minutes late every day they will miss three days of learning each year. If your child is 15 minutes late every day, they will miss 2 weeks of learning each year.

What can you do to help?

• If you suspect that your child may be missing school, or is unhappy at NUAST, you should contact the academy as soon as possible so that we can work together to resolve any difficulties.
• Make sure your child understands that you do not approve of them missing school, but be on the alert for any particular reasons for non-attendance, such as problems with school work and discuss these with the school.
• If your child is ill or absent for any reason, contact the academy reception by 8.30am on 0115 859 2040
• If your child is attending a medical appointment during the school day, you can notify the academy by contacting reception or writing a note in your child’s planner.
• Make sure that your child arrives at school on time.
• Take an interest in your child’s education.
• Ask them about their day and praise and encourage their achievements at NUAST.

The schools attendance policy can be found here