Attendance

Reporting Your Child Absent

To report your child absent please call the school office on 01482 896800 and either speak to a member of office staff or leave a recorded message.

If leaving a message on our answer machine please state clearly:

• your child’s full name
• their year group
• reason for absence, giving as much detail as you can regarding the illness.

If your child has been sick or had loose bowels they will need to be off school for 48hrs from their last episode.

You can also notify us of absence by sending a message via the Weduc app.

Attendance and Punctuality

At Preston, we believe that excellent attendance and punctuality at school will give your child the best possible chance of being successful in education. 

Being in school and on time  every day helps children to feel settled and happy, to build and maintain friendships and to feel confident about school routines. 

Regular attendance and arriving on time also ensures that children have a complete learning journey, can follow lessons from one to the next and understand much better what is going on in lessons- leading to good progress being made.

Missing beginnings of lessons due to arriving late is also very unsettling for children. Late arrivals are often anxious and don’t like arriving in class late after registers have been taken and lessons started. It often unsettles children for the whole lesson and makes it hard for them to concentrate and follow what is going on. 

Making sure your child comes to school every day is vital. Occasionally children are unwell first thing in the morning, but we encourage parents to bring children in as soon as they are feeling better (unless they have a high temperature, have been sick or have diarrhoea).  A half day at school is better than missing a whole day. If your child feels unwell during the day we will, of course, inform you. 

All holidays must be taken during school holidays. There are 13 weeks of school holidays and family holidays should be planned for these times. We cannot authorise family holidays during term time. 

If you have any questions or concerns about your child’s attendance or their willingness to come to school then please contact us as soon as possible- don’t let small worries grow into bigger ones! We are always here to listen and support.

If you are planning for your child to be absent from school for any reason, please talk to us first before making definite arrangements. We will do all we can to support one-off absences for genuine ‘exceptional circumstances’

Absence In Exceptional Circumstances

You are required under the Education Act (1996) to ensure your child attends school regularly. There is, however, a discretionary power held by Headteachers to authorise absence in exceptional circumstances. Please note this is not an entitlement. The Headteacher will only authorise absence in line with the East Riding Behaviour & Attendance Partnership ‘Absence From School For Exceptional Circumstances Policy’. Headteachers will not authorise absences if they believe it is to the detriment of a child’s education.

There is no longer a provision in law for Headteachers to authorise an absence for the purpose of a term time holiday. If your request is authorised, you are required to ensure your child catches up on any missed school work. This is your responsibility and school are not obliged to provide work for your child to complete. Any unauthorised absence will be recorded on your child’s attendance records. This may result in legal proceedings against you, either through a Penalty Notice or the Magistrates’ Court.

All planned absences must be requested on an Absence From School For Exceptional Circumstances form.



Penalty Notices

Under the Anti Social Behaviour Act (2003) the local authority and schools have statutory powers to tackle poor school attendance and/or unauthorised absences. An unauthorised absence is any absence that the Headteacher has not given permission for or where an explanation has not been provided by the parent.

Penalty Notices will be used as a deterrent to prevent a pattern of unauthorised absences developing. They will be issued by post direct to the home of a parent after possibly just one warning, or in the case of absences without acceptable cause, warnings may not be given. This includes pupils caught on truancy sweeps, persistent late arrival after the close of registration or unauthorised absence that has not been authorised as an absence from school for exceptional circumstances. In these cases the warning is given on the absence request form and detailed within this information leaflet.

If your request is declined and you still take your child out of school each parent within your household will be issued with a £60 penalty notice for each child you have taken out of school. If a penalty notice remains unpaid after 21 days it will increase to £120. If after 28 days it remains unpaid you may be summonsed to appear before Magistrates to explain why your child has unauthorised school absences and you may be liable for a fine of up to £1000.

If you believe at any stage that your child’s absence from school may leave you liable for prosecution or a penalty notice, it is important you take action without delay to secure their regular attendance. Support and guidance on attendance is always available and if you have any questions about this, or if you need help to achieve an improvement, then please contact your child’s school to discuss this.