Punctuality is extremely important. If a student is late to lessons or to school, detentions will be issued.
If a student is away from school, their parent/carer must phone the school on the first day and every day that the student is off school.
Tel: 01225 832936 and select Option 1 (Year 7-11) Option 2 (Sixth Form)
If you do not contact the school you will receive a call/text message that morning from our absence monitoring service, to check on the child’s whereabouts. This is to help prevent unauthorised absences. It is also important for safeguarding reasons, so that we know if a child is expected in school but hasn't arrived.
Parents/carers should not take family holidays in term time. The school is not able to authorise such absence on the grounds of cost or convenience. If requests for leave of absence have to be made for other reasons, then they should be made on a Leave of Absence Request Form and will be considered by the Headteacher.
Supporting your child at school
Encourage them to attend regularly. Make doctor/dentist appointments outside school hours or in school holidays. Insist your child aims for 100% attendance.
- Contact the tutor if you have any concerns.
- Insist that your child is punctual and arrives at school before 8.40am.
- Remind them of our shared expectations from the Home/School Agreement.
- Check your child has the right equipment for the day before they set off for school e.g. pens, pencil, ruler, calculator.
- Take an interest in your child’s work by asking to see their books and signing to indicate you have seen them.
- Insist that they work hard – listening and following instructions.
- Support them by attending the parents’ evening.
Dentist appointments and other absences during the school day
Students need to remember to sign in at Main Reception if they are late for school or if they are leaving school during the day, either for a medical appointment or other reasons. We would really appreciate medical and dental appointments not being made during the school day wherever possible. However, we understand that this is not always something that you can control. Afternoon appointments are best because students are likely to miss less of the school day. As a school we only authorise a maximum of half a day for a single medical appointment; there are exceptions to this if a pupil is having a course of lengthy or specialist medical treatment. Please ensure you report the absence to the school and write in your child's planner requesting them to be absent during the school day.
Attendance policy
Please find a link to the Trust website where you can see our attendance policy.
Penalty Notice Fines
There is wide agreement amongst both health and educational professionals that school attendance is vital to the life chances of children and young people. Being in school improves health, wellbeing and socialisation. The greatest benefits come from children and young people attending school regularly.
Please have a look at the visual above that shows the impact of having even 10 days off in a school year.
You might be aware that we already have strategies in place to help students who are struggling to attend; and we are very grateful to all of the parents who work with us to secure good attendance for their children. We are legally obliged to follow up on absence at any level.
We are aware that this is the season where people tend to catch colds and become ill, so we are sharing an NHS article that might be a useful tool to use when deciding if your child is well enough to attend as well as some other related articles:
Is my child too ill for school? - NHS (www.nhs.uk)
PMH | Support for parents facing childhood mental health issues
School attendance and absence: Overview - GOV.UK
For information, the school registers now close at 9.10am each day. If a student arrives after this time, with no viable reason, they will be issued with a U code which counts as an unauthorised absence.
NB If a child arrives on site on time, but truants the reading or tutor time session this will also result in a U code for am and pm register sessions, respectively, because the school has no way of knowing whether the student is in attendance or not before the 9.10am deadline. Those students caught truanting during reading or tutor time will be issued with a detention.
Here at Ralph Allen School we have a team of well-trained staff who can offer support and guidance with families who have children who struggle to attend school and we will do everything in our power to provide the appropriate level of support wherever possible. If you would like to talk to someone to seek advice on school attendance then please do not hesitate to contact your child’s tutor, Head of House or RAS-attendance@palladianacademytrust.com and we will help as much as we can. You are not alone.
