Attendance
At The Westminster School, excellent attendance and punctuality is our aim for every young person.
We know that our students learn many important skills and have a lot of fun doing so every single day, and we believe that it is vital for students to arrive promptly at school and attend every day. Good attendance is vital to your child’s progress and we aspire to high standards of attendance for every one of our students.
Research demonstrates that children who attend school regularly make better progress. Parents and carers play a important role in helping us promote good attitudes towards attendance. Together, it is important we ensure that children are present at every opportunity, arriving on time, and not being out of school without authorisation. We monitor attendance across the school closely, and we will follow up unexplained absences with parents or carers.
Where a child’s attendance record reaches a concerning level, we will contact the child’s parents or carers to discuss ways in which we can support all parties to help improve the child’s attendance, as outlined in our Attendance Policy.
Students who do not attend regularly may miss out on valuable learning experiences, as well as trips and visits. We closely monitor attendance across the year and we expect it to be at above 95% for our students. Any student with attendance below 90% is classed as a persistent absentee. Regular attendance is key for the young person’s education, time off can cause worry and anxiety for upon return and affect self-esteem. It also gives the young person opportunity to:
• See friends and feel included
• Learn new things and develop skills
• Increase confidence and self esteem
• Build resilience
• Improve those important social skills
Additionally, if students are persistently late and arrive after 9.30am, they may miss vital information given in the mornings, opportunities to meet their friends and get ready for lessons.
Persistent, severe or unexplained lateness can be classed as unauthorised absence and may be referred to the Local Authority, which could include the issue of a Fixed Penalty Notice.
Medical Appointments
If your child has medical appointments, it is best to try and make these at the end of the day, to prevent your child missing out of the school day. However, we understand that this may not always be possible and we request that appointments are made after 10am and it is expected that your child comes in to school before and after the appointment or appointments are made for after 2pm wherever possible. If your child has a medical appointment, please contact School Office on 0121 561 6884 and send in a copy of the appointment letter/card for our records.
Holidays in Term Time
The Head Teacher can only authorise absences in exceptional circumstances and the government have provided the school with strict criteria which they must follow.
Leave is unlikely to be granted for the purposes of a family holiday. If the Head Teacher grants a leave of absence, it will be for the Head Teacher to determine the length of time a child can be away from school.
If you apply for holiday leave, please do so before booking any holiday to avoid disappointment.
Absence must be recorded as unauthorised if a holiday leave form is not completed before the period of absence – this cannot be authorised retrospectively. Holidays which are unauthorised should not be taken. If they are, parents may be subject to a Fixed Penalty Notice or prosecution.
Should you wish to request holiday leave during term time for your child, you should do this by requesting a leave of absence request form from School Office.
Parent Support
We work hard to support children and families who are experiencing problems with attending school. If you would like someone to talk to about attendance or need some additional help and advice around your own child’s attendance please contact Denise Taylor, our Family Liaison Officer on 0121 561 6884.
Reporting Absence
If a pupil is unable to attend School please call the School Office to report the absence on 0121 561 6884. The School and in particular our Family Support Worker will work closely with families to maximise the learning opportunities by attending school.