Child Friendly Attendance Information

Welcome to Bennerley Fields

The information below should provide all the information you need regarding attendance at Bennerley Fields; however, further information can be found on the links at the bottom of this page.

The School Day

The school doors open at 8:55.

Register in the morning is between 8:55 and 9:15.

The afternoon session’s register is 15 minutes after the end of the end of lunch (1:45 for KS4 and 1:15 for the rest of the school).

Attendance is recorded per session (morning and afternoon), this means that it is beneficial to bring your child into school for the afternoon session if they have been absent in the morning.

Punctuality

Pupils arriving late (before registers close) will receive a late mark (L). If they arrive after the register is closed, this will be classed as an unauthorised absence (U). In the case of unavoidable delay for pupils using school transport, this will not incur a late mark.

If your child is absent you must:

Contact the school as soon as possible on the first day of absence (email or phone) by 9:00am.

Give a reason for the absence (if they are unwell explain their symptoms as ‘unwell / ill’ is not enough information for attendance records.

Call every day of absence to update.

Procedures

The school will apply the following procedures to manage attendance and punctuality.

Phone on the first day of absence, as a safeguarding requirement, if we have not heard from you.

We will work through the emergency contact numbers (in the order that they appear on our system).

If we have concerns for the safety of a child, doubt an absence is genuine or unexplained absence is recurring and we have not spoken directly to you we will visit the home address and contact necessary agencies (Police, Social Care).

Term time holidays

Due to new Department for Education guidelines, schools are not allowed to authorise holidays during term time, except in extremely exceptional circumstances.

As a trust, Esteem has decided that our families are still able to take term time holidays without families being fined, due to the needs of our pupils. This will now appear as a 'G' in registers which is an ‘unauthorised holiday’. This means you just need to inform us in writing (email is ok) of any holiday dates that will be in term time before you go away, but do not need to complete a holiday form anymore.

How we can help

School has good links with parents and carers and together we can support each other. Please get in touch with the school office or our Family Support Worker (Shirley Sewell) who may be able to arrange some help and support.

Who is the attendance Team?

Anna Shelton – Deputy Headteacher

Sarah Allen – Operations Manager

Shirley Sewell – Family Support Worker

Jenni Wright – Headteacher

Attendance and punctuality procedures where attendance is dropping or lateness is an issue

We will use this procedure to keep you as informed as possible about attendance queries and punctuality concerns:

STEP 1

Daily absence reports are sent to the attendance team. These are analysed for reasons of absence, number of days absent. Actions are taken as needed.

STEP 2

Within the first three weeks of term the attendance data is analysed by Anna and Sarah. Attendance below 90% is analysed and responded to; this may be a call from the attendance team, a home visit, or referral to other agencies.

STEP 3

Before the end of the term Anna and Sarah again analyse the data and letters/emails are sent.

If over 90% - an email stating that the attendance is on track

Below 90% - a letter sharing the attendance figures. These letters are on a case by case basis due to the health needs of our pupils. This letter offers help from the family support worker, or for a meeting to be arranged to discuss targets and strategies to improve attendance.

STEP 4

If there is little or no engagement and evidence that the attendance is improving, then a referral to may be made to the Designated and Deputy Designated Safeguarding Leads. They will then make a decision regarding if to refer to outside agencies due to safeguarding concerns.

National Framework for penalty notices

The new national threshold for consideration of legal action is 10 sessions of unauthorised absence in a rolling period of 10 school weeks. This can be any combination of unauthorised absence, including late after close of register (Attendance code U) and unauthorised leave in term time (Attendance code G).

If your child’s absence falls into this category the school will decide if further offers of support is likely to improve the situation or if a request for legal action should be submitted to the Local Authority.

The school attendance policy can be found on our policy page.