Attendance

Importance Statement

At OHA we believe that good attendance has a direct effect on good progress and achievement. It is important for children to attend regularly in order to maximise both their learning and their social and emotional development. Children who miss a lot of school may feel left out and will not have the same shared experiences as their classmates.  Pupils with lower attendance are more likely to find it difficult to follow what is going on in the classroom, miss school trips, special events and may affect their ability to make friends at school.  Being at OHA gives students more time to interact with teachers and classmates. Irregular school attendance is a contributory factor in social exclusion and underachievement. We expect children to attend regularly and arrive on time every day.

Our Attendance Aims

  • Ensure that everyone understands the importance of regular attendance
  • Ensure that our practice actively promotes excellent attendance
  • Support children and families where attendance is a concern
  • Communicate effectively at all levels in order to improve attendance

Meet The Team

Miss E Green – Attendance Officer

As our attendance officer, Miss Green monitors individual pupil attendance and works with staff, pupils and families to ensure attendance remains high.  Where attendance falls below 100% and particularly below 96% our attendance officer works with our heads of year, personal tutors and support officer to check in with families to ensure further absence is avoided wherever possible.

Where attendance falls below 90% (1 day in every 10 days of school) attendance becomes a significant concern.  At this rate, a pupil could miss up to 4 weeks of school per year and research shows that this level of absence can have very negative effects on educational outcomes. As a result, further monitoring takes place, the family may be met and targets for attendance set.

In line with academy trust policy our attendance officer holds formal attendance clinics, makes EWO (Educational welfare officer) referrals and fine applications where attendance is low and/or found to be unjustified.

Mrs M Stevens – Attendance Support Assistant

New to our team in 2022, Mrs Stevens works with families and individual pupils to ensure unauthorised absence is explored on each and every occasion. Mrs Steven sends reminder text messages, absence notifications, makes on the day and next day calls to ensure pupils return from absence as soon as they are able, so as not to miss out on valuable learning time and make sure that we, as an academy can account for all pupil absences.

Legal Requirements

The law requires all schools and academies to maintain an admission register containing the personal details of every pupil at OHA.  This must include information regarding parents/carers and the date of admission.  Such information is entered on to the register on the first day of admission.

At OHA, like all other schools and academies, we must notify the local authority within 5 days of adding a name to the admission register in the year and must provide the local authority with relevant information held. Where a pupil leaves, the school must record the date of leaving and the name of the receiving school and cannot remove a name unless the authority and new school confirm that we are able to do so.

Persistent Absentees (PA)

These are defined as children whose attendance falls below 90%.  Actions to address this are taken on an individual level and may include other agencies; specifically, social care as such extended absences may trigger a safeguarding concern. Referrals will be made to the Local Authority Education Welfare team and appropriate actions taken. This may include formal meetings and lead to the issue of a Penalty Notice or other legal action. Parents/carers may be taken to court where they could be issued with a fine or even a custodial sentence.

Responsibilities

Teachers
  • Mark electronic register at the beginning on the morning and afternoon sessions and submit to office by 8.40am and 1pm
  • Inform the attendance team of absence from class and may seek information from parents/carers to encourage attendance and request work be completed to catch up work missed
  • Continually promote the importance of good attendance
  • Mark register in every lesson within first ten minutes of the lesson start
Attendance Officer/Attendance Support and Heads of year
  • Monitor registers to identify children who are absent without explanation
  • Seek reason for absence from parents/carer by telephoning/texting
  • Repeat contact on following day where necessary
  • Build relationships with parents/carers in order to ensure good channels of communication
  • Regular feedback to senior leaders
  • Run weekly absence report to identify children whose absence falls below 95% and liaise with year teams and the Vice Principal
  • Maintain records accurately and appropriately
  • Send out standard letters for regular lateness, regular patterns of absence or attendance concerns.
Parents
  • Ensure that their children attend regularly and arrive on time
  • Inform the school office by phone if their child is absent through illness or other genuine reason
  • Arrange, where possible medical and other appointments outside of academy hours/times
  • Take holidays only in academy holiday periods following the terms times calendar

Please note that holidays during term time will be marked as unauthorised and may lead to a fixed penalty fine.