Attendance
Excellent Attendance = Great Opportunities!
At Pinehurst Primary, we aim for every child to achieve at least 97% attendance. Coming to school every day helps children build strong learning habits, keep up with their classwork, and reach their full potential. Regular attendance also means children don’t miss out on friendships, teamwork, and the fun of learning together. By being in school every day, your child is laying the foundations for future success – not just academically, but socially and emotionally too. Together, we can make sure every child has the very best start in life.
How We Monitor Attendance at Pinehurst
The Education Welfare Officer (EWO) assigned to our school, Mrs Steers and Office staff have a statutory duty to monitor your child’s attendance carefully. If your child has low attendance we will write to you so you have an opportunity to consider it and to support your child to improve their attendance before the EWO is left little option but to start issuing warning letters and / or requests for evidence such as medical letters to evidence that your child was too ill to attend school. If attendance still does not improve, an EWO can arrange for families to be issued with a Penalty Notice or Court Warnings. The Government consider Good Attendance to be that important!
We would be delighted to see your child in school every day and we reward all children for good attendance. We also employ colleagues to support you achieve this. For example:
Mrs Steers, Attendance Lead
Ms Wigelsworth, Family Liason and Pastoral Lead
Ms Deering, EWO, is also available to offer advice and support.
Attendance Facts;
· Attendance of 95% for the year equals 10 days that your child has been absent, that is 2 full school weeks of your child’s learning missed for that year.
· Attendance of 90% for the year equals 19 days that your child has been absent, that is almost 4 school weeks missed.
· Attendance of 85% for the year equals 29 days that your child has been absent, that is almost 6 school weeks missed.
· Attendance of 80% for the year equals 38 days absent per year that is over 7 school weeks missed.
The school day has two attendance sessions – Morning and Afternoon marks
· If your child seems unwell in the morning but seems better by lunchtime, please bring them into school for the afternoon session, this will help to keep your child’s attendance as high as possible.
· If your child ever has to have an emergency medical appointment, please ensure that you try to make it at the beginning or end of a school day, this way your child would only miss a maximum of half a day for the appointment. You will need to show the Office your Medical Appointment card.
Punctuality Matters Being frequently late for school adds up to lost learning,
· Arriving 5 minutes late every day adds up to over 3 days lost each year
· Arriving 15 minutes late every day adds up to 2 weeks absence a year
· Arriving 30 minutes late every adds up to almost 4 weeks absence a year
Leave of Absence in Term Time
· If you wish to take your child out of school for ANY reason during term time, you must formally request this in writing.
· Periods of absence during term time can only be authorised by the Head and then ONLY in exceptional circumstances.
· Please remember in order for your request to be considered by the Headteacher, you must make the request prior to the absence otherwise it is always unauthorised.
· If you have a period of unauthorised absence during term time, you may be subject to sanctions including a penalty notice which at present is £160 per child, per adult. This is reduced to £80 per child per parent if paid within 28 days. Therefore if a family of 2 children take unauthorised leave during term time, the fine will be £320 for the Mother and £320 for the Father, reduced to £160 each if paid within 28 days.