Attendance
Good attendance is at the core of our principles and we work hard to support students in achieving 100% attendance. It is a proven fact that attendance is directly linked to academic results and we reward good attendance at intervals throughout the academic year.
Similarly, punctuality is of the utmost importance and we have an excellent record of students arriving to school and lessons on time. School starts promptly at 8.30am and we ask that students arrive no later than 8:25am in order to ensure a crisp start to morning registration.
If you were just 10 minutes late every day for one year, you would miss almost 6 days of learning!!!!!
Leave of Absence
Student’s daily attendance at school is of the greatest importance and is vital for your child’s educational progress. We expect all parents & carers to ensure that their children attend school regularly and leave of absences taken during term time e.g. those due to holidays and trips or to visit relatives, will be unauthorised as they seriously disrupt children’s education. We therefore strongly recommend that parents use existing school holidays for undertaking trips abroad and planning trips.
Fixed Penalty Notice
It is the school’s policy to request a Fixed Penalty Notice for every pupil with unauthorised absences which total 5 days (10 sessions) or more. These 10 sessions of unauthorised absence (within a period of 10 school weeks) do not need to be consecutive and may be unauthorised for a combination of different reasons e.g. 6 sessions of unauthorised absence for a term time leave of absence (requested or unrequested) and 4 sessions of unauthorised absence for your child arriving late after the register closes. If parents/carers take their child out of school during term time, and this has not been authorised by the Headteacher, the following will occur if your child has had 5 days (10 sessions) or more unauthorised absence within a 10-week period:
If issued with a first penalty notice, the parent must pay £80 within 21 days, or £160 within 28 days.
- If a second penalty notice is issued to the same parent in respect of the same pupil, the parent must pay £160 if paid within 28 days.
- A third penalty notice cannot be issued to the same parent in respect of the same child within 3 years of the date of the issue of the first penalty notice. In a case where the national threshold is met for a third time within those 3 years, alternative action will be taken instead. This will often include considering prosecution as repeated offences of leave of absence may result in the matter being directly prosecuted in Kirklees Magistrates’ court. Other tools such as one of the other attendance legal interventions may also be considered.
School will follow the following procedures for a continuous leave of absence of 20 days or more: we will refer the case to the Children Missing in Education team (CME) and work with them to determine whether there are reasonable grounds to remove your child from our school roll.
If you wish to apply for your child to be absent from school, please complete the form below and return it to school at least TWO WEEKS before the intended departure.
Leave of Absence Request Form
School Policies
A copy of the school’s Attendance Policy is available from policies section of the website