Whilst we all know that it is inevitable that children will have periods of illness during their time at school, it is essential that we look at ways to minimise this and the impact it has on achievement.\u00a0Regular and punctual school attendance is essential \u2013 only pupils who attend school regularly can take full advantage of the educational opportunities available to them.<\/p>\n
What is good attendance?<\/strong> All pupils should strive towards achieving at least 96% attendance. Once attendance drops to 90% your child is classed by the Department of Education as being \u2018Persistently Absent\u2019. 90% attendance is the equivalent of;<\/p>\n Children who miss this much school have been proven to drop at least ONE GCSE GRADE. A 1% improvement in attendance could mean a 5% improvement in attainment<\/strong>.\u00a0 Please see policy for National expectation;<\/p>\n Working together to improve school attendance (publishing.service.gov.uk)<\/a><\/p>\n Monitoring attendance.<\/strong> We at Alvechurch Middle School closely monitor all children\u2019s attendance as part of our safeguarding duty of care. If we feel concerned we will contact the Education Welfare Officer at Worcestershire County Council for support. You may be contacted either by phone or by letter to discuss any obstacles to regular attendance. However, if attendance does not improve, a meeting may need to be set up with parents to find solutions. All pupils with attendance levels of below 90% will be requested to supply medical evidence for absences. Continued unauthorised absence could lead to a referral to the Education Investigation Service.\u00a0 Full guidance is available by clicking this link\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n What can parents do.<\/strong> If your child is suffering from a minor ailment such as a cold or a cough please consider sending them to school.\u00a0 \u00a0We will always send them home if they feel they are too unwell to be here. Keep in contact with us every day to keep us aware of what is wrong and seek advice as to whether your child could even do part of the school day. Please visit NHS: Is my child too ill for school? – NHS (www.nhs.uk)<\/a> to assist you with your decision.<\/p>\n For absences of 3 days or more, please ensure you seek medical advice and provide a copy for the medical appointment to our school office team in order to authorise absences as illness. With regards to holiday during term time, we do ask that you please ensure you arrange holidays outside of term time \u2013 holidays will only ever be authorised by our Headteacher in exceptional circumstances.\u00a0 Please consider when pupils take holidays without notifying the school it can cause stress to our pupils and their friends as they feel pressured into being dishonest. Should you wish to take your child out of school during term time, please complete the Request for Leave During Term Time<\/a> form and return to the office.\u00a0 If a child has not been seen for three days, our safeguarding team will be informed with safe and well checks potentially being carried out to the child’s home address.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n Towards the end of each term we will always make contact with parents of those pupils who have dropped below 94% attendance.\u00a0 This is to ensure parents are aware of the overall absence for the term with reasons for each absence.\u00a0 This can assist in identifying any ongoing medical problems or issues with school life.\u00a0 We are here to support and encourage pupils and by keeping parents informed ensures we are working together in the best interest for pupils.\u00a0 Should a pupil’s attendance be an ongoing concern, we as a school will follow National guidance for school attendance and would ask parents to ensure they are aware of their own duty in ensuring their child receives the education they are legally entitled to.\u00a0 Parental guidance can be found via the following links;<\/p>\n Government Policy ~ Parental responsibility for School Attendance\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n Summary table of responsibilities for school attendance (publishing.service.gov.uk)<\/a><\/p>\n If you are concerned about your child\u2019s attendance or would like any advice you are more than welcome to contact Mrs Rees who is more than happy to assist.<\/p>\n For daily attendance, parents are asked to inform our school office by 9.05am if their child is going to be absent that day.\u00a0 Parents can either contact the school by phone, 01214451033 and leave a message on the absence line or report directly via our website using the link<\/a> found on our homepage.\u00a0 Absences must be reported each day.\u00a0 If a child has not made registration, we will send a text message advising parents that this is the case.\u00a0 Please ensure any absence is reported to office@alvechurch.worcs.sch.uk<\/a> and not directly to teachers.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Whilst we all know that it is inevitable that children will have periods of illness during their time at school, it is essential that we look at ways to minimise this and the impact it has on achievement.\u00a0Regular and punctual school attendance is essential \u2013 only pupils who attend school […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alvechurchmiddle.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2435"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alvechurchmiddle.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alvechurchmiddle.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alvechurchmiddle.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alvechurchmiddle.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2435"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/www.alvechurchmiddle.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2435\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8129,"href":"https:\/\/www.alvechurchmiddle.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2435\/revisions\/8129"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alvechurchmiddle.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2435"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n