Attendance & Absence
Information for Parents
As you may be aware, the Department for Education has updated their guidance in relation to school attendance. The published guidance 🔗 contains clear actions which must be taken by schools, local authorities, governing bodies, and parents. It is nationally recognised that children cannot succeed in school if they do not regularly attend, and where attendance is low, this can directly affect exam results and pathways to further study.
The Department for Education has recently published developed guidance, and we are choosing to share this with you as it could affect you directly.
The guidance states that parents should:
- Ensure their child attends every day the school is open except when a statutory reason applies.
- Notify the school as soon as possible when their child has to be unexpectedly absent (e.g. sickness).
- Only request leave of absence in exceptional circumstances and do so in advance.
- Book any medical appointments around the school day where possible.
- Work with the school and local authority to help them understand their child’s barriers to attendance.
- Proactively engage with the formal support offered – including any parenting contract or voluntary early help plan.
As a school, we are required to:
- Expect good standards of attendance.
- Monitor attendance patterns
- Listen to parents and children to identify the barriers to attendance.
- Facilitate support to ensure parents and children can improve attendance.
- Formalise support when voluntary support is not working.
- Enforce attendance through statutory intervention with support from the local Authority.
Frequently Asked Questions
Attendance & Absence
Who can support me if my child doesn’t want to come to school?
We have staff dedicated to improving attendance for all students:
Chris Budrys will be your first port of call if you need any attendance support:
Chris.Budrys@sportingstarsacademy.com
Michelle Simonds is also available by the attendance email:
admin@sportsingstarsacademy.com, and also via the school’s main contact number: 01782 248248.
How do I report an absence?
We expect all parents to contact us before 8:15am on every day of absence. You can do this by calling our number on 01782 248248.
At Sporting Stars Academy, all registers are reconciled. Any child who is unaccounted for will be placed on the ‘immediate action’ list.
From here, the following may take place:
- An immediate warning message will be sent to all named contacts on our system to notify you of this absence and to ask for an urgent call back to discuss this further.
- Support staff will then seek to contact all available numbers on the system via telephone.
- Home visit teams are dispatched to visit homes including where we have received no notification of absence.
Can I book a holiday in term time?
In short, no. We are unable to authorise any absence during term time unless in exceptional circumstances. A holiday does not fall under this category.
Can I book a medical appointment during term time?
Again, we would advise against it. We do recognise however that some appointments cannot be helped i.e. orthodontic.
How do I know if my child has too much time off school?
We always ensure we publish our planned systems for monitoring attendance in advance to ensure full transparency with parents.