Absence
At Rainbow Forge Primary Academy we are committed to our vision that
children are happy, safe and secure and that success and achievement is celebrated. Good attendance at school is key to this and every lesson counts.
We work in partnership with families to ensure the best for our children, giving regular personalised feedback to all families whose children have less than 95% attendance.
Attendance is a whole school commitment, this is what you can expect from the staff at school:
- A phone call on the first day your child is absent to ascertain the reason, offer advice and support.
- A supportive environment where your child will be cared for when ‘under the weather’ or suffering from common illness such as colds, coughs, aches and pains.
- Trained staff who can administer prescription medication to your child to allow them to attend when taking medications (see the office for a medications form)
- Teachers who will call to offer support for your child’s learning should they be absent more than 2 days.
- Keep up sessions for your child when they return to catch up on missed learning.
- A termly written report on your child’s attendance
- Swift action to support your family if your child’s attendance drops below 95%
Our Monitoring Cycle
Every 3 weeks we take a snapshot of every child’s attendance, This ensures we act as soon as someone drops below 95% to prevent them becoming a persistent absentee. If your child’s attendance has improved this will be recognised with a dojo message, if your child’s attendance percentage has dropped you will be contacted by the relevant staff member to look at how we can improve this.
95-93% – your child’s class teacher will contact parents
92-90% – Mrs Loader will contact parents
89-70% – Miss Provines will contact parents
below 70% – Mrs Sneddon will contact parents.
We follow Sheffield’s Working Together attendance guidance to establish what the barriers are to your child attending well and work with you to reduce these. This may involve getting other agencies such as MAST or your GP involved in the discussion.
What we expect from families:
· Make sure their child attends every day on time
· Call the academy to report their child’s absence before 9:30am on the day of the absence and send a message (Dojo or school comms) on each subsequent day of absence, and advise when their child is expected to return.
· Provide the academy with more than 1 emergency contact number for their child and update accordingly
· Ensure that, where possible, appointments for their child are made outside of the academy day.
· Notify us if you need to take your child out of school for a planned reason using the Leave of Absence form from the office.
Punctuality
Lateness is recorded on the gates by staff each morning and added to children’s attendance record.
When children are late they miss:
· The chance to say hello to their friends
· The chance to tell their teacher how they feel this morning
· The sense of belonging that comes from walking in with everyone else
· The opportunity to practise and embed their maths skills
· The chance to improve their reading.
· They may have missed assembly, where they would have found out important messages about school.
· The sense of confidence that comes with knowing what is happening each day.
Remember every minute counts
