Attendance

At Charles Darwin Community Primary School, we will only authorise absences due to Exceptional Circumstances such as:

• genuine illness
• medical or dental appointments (please if at all possible these should be made outside of school time)
• close family bereavements
• religious observance days
• other exceptional circumstances 

We operate a ‘first day’ response system.  In practice this means that parents are requested to telephone school using the dedicated answering machine on the first morning of their child’s absence.

Registers are checked daily and if there has been no message to say why a pupil is absent then a 1st text will be sent; if your child will be absent for longer than a day, please update us on each day of the absence. 

Leave of Absence/Holidays During TermTime
If you wish to apply for a leave of absence for your child, please ensure that you have referred to the Attendance Policy. Due to changes in legislation, only absence requests with exceptional circumstances will be granted. 

Please read Cheshire West and Chester Council's Guidelines to Fixed Penalty Notices for Unauthorised Holidays for more information.

If Parents/Carers make the decision to go ahead and take their children out of school for a family holiday this will be documented as an Unauthorised Absence and fixed penalty fine may be issued.

A Request For Time Out Of School Form must still be completed and returned to the School Office for the attention of the Headteacher.

Attendance really does matter!

Did you know that:

• 90% Attendance means 4 WHOLE WEEKS of school have been missed.

This level of attendance is not good. 90% means your child will struggle with their school work because they have the equivalent of 1 day off every fortnight!

• 17 days off school every year means your child will probably obtain a WHOLE GRADE LOWER in their exams than they are really capable of.

Do you really want this for your child?

If your child's attendance is above 95% you are giving them the opportunity to achieve and succeed...

...not just now but throughout their lives!

So, what can we do about it, together?

At the end of this school year, your child's attendance will be categorised into Red, Amber or Green zone.

Every term that attendance will be re-categorised and reported to you.

Our aim is for all childen be above 95% for both attendance and punctuality and be in the 'green safety zone'

If your child's attendance falls below 95%
They will be in the 'amber at risk zone'
You will receive an email offering support and we wil monitor your child's attendance and punctuality and hope to see an improvement in the coming month.

If your child's attendance falls below 90%
They will be in the 'red danger zone'
We will contact you to agree an attendance support plan and we may refer the matter to our Education Welfare Office.

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