Attendance
Attendance
At Dane Bank Primary School we aim to ensure that all its pupils receive a full-time education which maximises opportunities for each pupil to realise his/her true potential. The school will strive to provide a welcoming, caring environment, whereby each member of the school community feels wanted and secure. All school staff will work with pupils and their families to ensure each pupil attends school regularly and punctually.
Our Attendance Policy is available on our policies page, or by clicking here.
Mrs Beale is our Attendance Support Officer and works alongside the Inclusion Team to monitor attendance. Mrs Beale is also keen to support any families that may be experiencing challenges with school attendance and will meet with families to develop Attendance Improvement Plans to outline all the support we can offer.
The school office is staffed from 8am where calls can be taken to inform us of absence from school.
Punctuality
Pupils can come into school from 8.45am and the school day starts promptly at 8.55 a.m. If a child arrives at school after 9 a.m. without prior arrangements having been agreed, he/she will be deemed late. Where a child arrives at school after 9.30am, an unauthorised absence will be recorded for the morning session. Pupils arriving at school after 9 a.m. must enter through the main entrance and report to the school office to be signed in by an adult. Registers are also taken when the children return to classes after lunch.
Penalty Notices
Any attendance penalty notices issued after the 19th August 2024 will be issued in line with the new regulations. The new penalty notice regulations are:
First Penalty /Notice within a 3-year period
- Parent will be issued a penalty notice for each child who is absent.
- The fine amount will be £160 per child paid within 28 days, reduced to £80 per child if paid within 21 days.
Second Penalty Notice within a 3-year period
- The next time an offence occurs, within 3 years of the date the first penalty notice is issued, the fine amount will be £160 per child with no reduction.
Further offences within a 3-year period
- The number of Penalty Notices that can be issued to a parent in respect of an individual child will be limited to 2 notices within any 3-year period. Further offences will need consideration on whether alternative action is required including a prosecution in the Magistrates; court.
This will include holiday in term time fines and irregular attendance. Where a child has unauthorised absences of 10 sessions (a session refers to each half of a school day) or more in a 10-week period, the school must consider escalation to prosecution. An absence is so often a symptom of wider issues a family is facing and the school will always strive to work together with other local partners and families to understand the barriers to attendance and provide support. Where that is not successful, or is not engaged with, the law protects pupils; right to an education and provides a range of legal interventions to formalise attendance improvement efforts, and where all other avenues have been exhausted, enforce it through legal means. These 10 sessions could be made up on holiday in term time, unauthorised late marks or unauthorised absence.
It is therefore important to notify school every day that your child is absent, providing a reason, and where appropriate, evidence of medical appointments or prescribed medication.
The Department for Education have updated the “Working together to improve school attendance (applies from 19 August 2024)” guidance and this is available on the DfE website. This clarifies the expectations for parents, schools, and the Local Authority to promote the importance of regular school attendance at school and to provide ideas for support and interventions when a young person is not attending school on a regular basis.
Regulations came in to force on the 19th August to mandate attendance data sharing by all schools. This means that your child’s attendance data will be shared with the Department for Education and the Local Authority every day. This will be live data. This will allow the DfE to provide schools with the tools to monitor and see improvement in attendance and will allow the Local Authority to provide advice, support and Early Help services. It will also allow tracking of attendance trends, for example – if a child is absent from school on the same day each week.
Will all of these changes, the priority is support pupils to access school every day. If your child is finding attending school difficult, is feeling anxious about attending school, or needs help to access their education, please let us know as soon as possible and we can arrange a meeting to discuss how we can support them.