Attendance

Why is it important to attend school regularly?

School attendance is central to raising standards in education and ensuring all pupils can fulfil their potential. Regular attendance enables your child to keep up with their work and achieve better results. In addition it gives your child the best possible start in life and allows them develop friendships and social skills.

There is a clear link between attendance and academic achievement. Statistically, those with higher that 96% attendance achieve higher levels of attainment at Key Stage 1, 2 and beyond to GCSE and A levels.

Children of compulsory school age must, by law, receive a full time education.

The Education Act 1996 states that all pupils should attend school regularly and punctually. ‘If a child of compulsory school age, who is a registered pupil at a school fails to attend regularly at the school, his parent is guilty of an offence.’

Each person with day to day parental responsibility could be taken to court and fined for each child who is not attending school regularly or who is persistently late.

Some key attendance facts:

• If a child has 95% attendance, this still equates to nearly two weeks absence in a year.
• If a child has 90% attendance, this still equates to nearly four weeks absence in a year.
• If a child has 85% attendance, this still equates to nearly six weeks absence in a year.

Arrival at School

The school gates will open at 8.45 a.m. for drop off in the playground. Your child should be in school by 9:00 am for the start of the school day. Parents and carers will be able to use either the pupil entrance on Buckingham Road or the back gate by Sainsbury’s.

The school gates will close promptly at 9:00 a.m. and if you arrive after 9.00 a.m. you must enter the school via the school office where you will be asked to sign the late form. If your child arrives between 9.00 a.m. – 9.30 a.m. they will be marked late. If your child arrives after 9.30 a.m. they will receive an unauthorised absence mark for the morning session.

Remember that persistent lateness can be legally counted as unauthorised absence.

Lateness can:

• Cause embarrassment to your child
• Make it harder for them to settle as they will have missed instructions for the task at hand
• Cause disruption to the Class Teacher and the rest of the class

Absence

If your child is unable to come to school, for any reason, you must notify us by 9.30 a.m. on the first day of absence and each day thereafter. You can do this by calling

020 8941 2548 or email info@buckingham.richmond.sch.uk  A specific reason must be provided, rather than a ‘not well’ message. Without specific information the absence will remain unauthorised.

Please try to make medical or dentist appointments outside school hours. Proof must be provided for any absence due to medical or dental appointments, without it the absence will not be authorised. If you cannot make appointments out of school hours, your child should come to school before the appointment and return to school afterwards.

Authorised and Unauthorised Absences

We can only authorised absences in the following circumstances:

• Genuine illness
• Close family bereavement
• Recognised religious observance

We will not authorise absence in the following circumstances:

• Day trips
• Shopping trips
• Birthdays
• Bad weather
• Family holidays taken in term time - please see our School Attendance Policy

N.B. Please note this list is not exhaustive.

Illness

It can be tricky deciding whether or not to keep your child off school when they’re unwell. There will be times when it is obvious that your child is too unwell to attend school.

Please refer to the government guidelines for school that say when children should be kept off school and when they shouldn’t.

Examples of when your child should still come to school if:

• they have head lice – but we would ask you to treat them before the school day
• they have a slight cold
• they have a mild headache
• once they have started treatment for impetigo or ringworm
• if they have hand, foot and mouth disease and seem well enough to come to school
• if they have a sore throat but do not have a fever
• if they have threadworms and have taken treatment

For example when your child should not come to school if:

• they have a raised temperature (over 37.5C)
• they have diarrhoea and vomiting and should stay away from school for 48 hours after their symptoms have gone

Please be assured that your child’s health and well-being is of the upmost importance to us, therefore, if we feel a child should not be in school because they are too unwell we will send them home.

100% Attendance Treat

Aladdin at Woking Theatre

This year our treat for coming to school every day for a whole academic year was to attend the Pantomime ‘Aladdin’ at Woking Theatre.

Here are some photos that show how much we enjoyed ourselves!

The lucky winner of our Attendance Raffle held on the last day of the Summer Term 2018 was Bleu of Juniper Class who was delighted to be presented with his Kindle Fire by our previous winner, Olly of Cherry Class

Many congratulations to Bleu from us all!

We are delighted to announce that Olly of Cherry Class is our latest Attendance Raffle winner, held as we broke up for the May Half Term. We wish him many happy times with his brand-new Kindle Fire tablet. Well done Olly!

Attendance Raffle

Our latest winner of the half termly Attendance Raffle is Jaya of Reception's Holly Class who is now the very proud owner of a Kindle Fire!

She will have great fun finding out all the wonderful things it does over our half term break.

Last half term's winner Terry of Year Six Acacia Class  was delighted to present Jaya with her brand-new Kindle Fire at assembly.

The first half term winner also saw McKenna win a Kindle Fire. Coincidentally she is also a member of Year  Six Acacia Class!

Congratulations to all of these pupils for their great regular school attendance which is helping them to achieve their full potential at school.

Year Two Willow Class are delighted to showcase here their magnificent group of eight pupils who have so far this school year achieved 100% Attendance. They have had no days of absence at all since they have been in Year Two.

This means that they are very well-placed to achieve their full potential as they have been present in lessons every single day. It also means that they can wear the very smart 100% Attendance Badge with great pride. You may be able to spot it here in their photograph.

Finally it also means that they are well on track for a ticket to next year's Pantomime or other similar theatre event as this annual treat is awarded to all those who successfully maintain 100% Attendance throughout the school year.

Very well done to Mary, Alice, Veliko, Oscar, Emily, Nataniel, Archie and Valera - keep it up!

100% Attendance for 2015/16

We were absolutely delighted to invite 44 of our pupils from Year One all the way through to Year Six to a very special outing to Richmond Theatre to the Pantomime which this year was 'Sleeping Beauty'. These children were selected because they had achieved 100% School Attendance throughout the whole of the last full academic year that ended in July 2016.

You can see how very thrilled and excited the children were as we caught them in mid-cheer as they arrived at the theatre in the first photograph included here! We can also very clearly see their 100% badges glowing in the dark in the last photograph taken as the show was about to begin.

During the show, which was excellent as always, the children received a 'Call-Out' from one of the main characters on the stage who named the school and congratulated all of our children on their great achievement. He even led a 'Happy Birthday' singing to Luci who was 9 that day and this made it even more special for us all!

Very well done to all of our 100%ers - and also to the staff members who accompanied this outing for their 100% school attendance too.

Keep it up everybody!