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Charvil Piggott Primary School

Part of the Piggott Church of England Academy

Attendance

We are incredibly proud of our attendance figures at Charvil. Our children enjoy coming to school and learning together as a community.

 

Attendance expectations 

We expect pupils’ attendance to be above 93%, while appreciating that children are genuinely unwell at times. Attendance under 90% is very concerning, while this percentage may seem high, the reality is that your child will miss half a day of school each week or 19 days of school during the school year. That is nearly four school weeks. This will have a detrimental impact on your child’s ‘life chances’.

At Charvil, we recognise and understand that school attendance can be challenging for some children and families, therefore we are keen to work together with families to address any attendance concerns. Where absence is a concern, the attendance team will take the time to listen, understand the barriers and put things in place to help improve attendance.

Punctuality

Being late means children miss out on vital parts of their education, just the same as being absent from school. As soon as the children come into school, they are expected to complete an activity which aims to consolidate previous learning or prepare for learning to come, by missing this, your child will be at a disadvantage.

Absence reporting and actions

If your child is unwell, you need to let the office know by either emailing or phoning by 9.30am every morning. Where a student does not register for a morning session and there is no explanation for the absence via email or phone, the school will contact you and request a reason for absence. If we are unable to make contact, for safeguarding reasons, we will call the other contacts on your child’s school record. If contact cannot be made, we will carry out a home visit.

Medical and dental appointments should not be made during the school day unless necessary.

Penalty Notices (PNs)

We have a strong working partnership with the Education Welfare Service at Wokingham. Regular consultations take place with our Education Welfare Officer, where we discuss any attendance concerns. Where there are periods of unauthorised absence, we can issue Penalty Notices (PN).

The threshold for issuing a Penalty Notice is 10 sessions of unauthorised absence in a rolling period of 10 school weeks (The period of 10 school weeks can also span different terms or school years).

Examples of unauthorised absence could be: (these are cited as examples and are not meant to be exhaustive):

• Unauthorised holidays in term-time – 5 days or more

• Excessive delayed return from authorised extended holidays without prior school agreement

• Persistent late arrival at school (after the register has closed) - i.e. 10 occasions in a 10-school week period

• Less than 80% attendance, the absences being unauthorised; during a 4-week period

When the school becomes aware that the threshold has been met, the first action will be to offer support to the families to help raise the child’s attendance. If that support is not working, or more importantly it is not being engaged with, a Penalty Notice can be issued.

  • First penalty notice is charged at £80 if paid within 21 days, increasing to £160 if paid within 28 days
  • Second penalty notice £160 if paid within 28 days
  • Third penalty notice would not be considered, this would go to prosecution.

Requesting a leave of absence

We do not expect any parents to request permission for holidays for their children during the school term unless there are exceptional circumstances. Any requests should be submitted to the school at least 15 school days before the holiday dates (form below). The Headteacher will determine whether the circumstances are exceptional or not and how many days your child can be away from school if leave is granted. Whilst the cost of a holiday might be a reason for absence, it is not considered to be an exceptional reason. Please be aware that unauthorised holiday absence of 5 days or more can now result in the issuing of a Penalty Notice.