Attendance
At Katherine Warington School we recognise that attending school regularly and on time has a positive impact on learning, progress and therefore the best life chances for our students.
Excellent attendance and punctuality is the key for our students’ success. Therefore, we aim to ensure that attendance and punctuality are the highest they possibly can be in order to prepare our students for their future adult life. We aim to reach an overall attendance target greater than 96%.
The importance of attending school both regularly and punctually cannot be overstated, and it is fair to say that students can only make the most of the educational opportunities available to them at Katherine Warington if they maintain a good attendance record. Regular and punctual attendance is a habit and one that all parents should encourage; the link with standards of achievement is well proven.
Good attendance means that students establish good educational habits and routines, keep up with work more easily, develop well socially and have a good attendance record to show prospective employers. Students who do not do well often have patterns of non-attendance or poor punctuality and fail to achieve as well as they could. Poor attendance often means that students feel unsettled at school, struggle to keep up to date with their work and lose their place in their social group. We will obviously do all that we can to support students in such circumstances, but there really is no substitute for being in the classroom.
Katherine Warington School Absence Line Tel: 01582 314800 (24hr answerphone)
Email: absence@kwschool.co.uk
Attendance Procedures for Parents/Carers
- Parents/carers should report ALL absences before 8.30am on the first day of absence and every subsequent day of illness thereafter.
- If your child is unable to attend school due to illness, urgent appointments or other reasons please telephone the 24hr school absence line 01582 314800 or email absence@kwschool.co.uk leaving your name, your child’s name, tutor group and reason for absence. This must be done prior to 8.30am. If this is not done the school is forced to record an Unauthorised Absence and this in turn may lead to a referral to the Attendance Improvement Officer. Unauthorised absences may ultimately result in legal action being taken.
- If you have reported their absence by calling or leaving a message on the recorded telephone absence line, please also send a note in or email absence@kwschool.co.uk on the first day they return with an explanation of the absence.
- Please give plenty of notice for any planned absence, for example, hospital appointments and provide a copy of any medical/dental appointment cards/letters to the school. We would appreciate all dental and non-urgent doctor appointments being made out of school hours.
Punctuality
We understand that adverse circumstances will very occasionally force students to arrive late at school but would ask that all parents and carers remind students of the school rules regarding punctuality:
- Students should arrive at school and be in their form rooms before 8.30am and should register with their Form Tutor.
- Students arriving late should sign in at reception and explain their lateness to their Tutor at the next registration. Students who are persistently late (late three times in a term, and each subsequent late thereafter) will attend a restorative meeting to explain their inability to arrive punctually and describe actions that will be taken to correct this. We expect parents/carers to refine travel arrangements to ensure students arrive in plenty of time.
Holiday Requests
We would ask parents and carers not to take children out of school during term time for holidays. Whilst we appreciate that it can be more expensive to go away in the holiday periods, ultimately losing valuable school time is at the expense of your child’s education.
- Leave of absence for holiday purposes is only authorised under very exceptional circumstances. At Katherine Warington we do not believe that children should be removed from school during term time for this purpose and parents and carers should certainly not expect such leave to be granted as a right.
- If you feel that the circumstances are exceptional then an application should be made to the Headteacher prior to any arrangements being made. The Headteacher will then decide whether or not the absence can be authorised.
