Please contact the School Office as early as possible if your child will be late or absent from school. Messages left with the school are picked up throughout the school day.

If your child is unwell, has a medical appointment or there is an emergency

Absences because of unavoidable causes, such as illness, medical appointments that are due to take place during school hours, or immediate emergencies, are called authorised absences. In these cases, please send in a letter explaining the absence, even if you have already let us know by phone.

Please come to the School Office on Lansbury Drive to drop your child to school during school hours.

Should I keep my child off school?

Have you given your child paracetamol or ibuprofen?

As a general rule, if you have to give your child paracetamol or ibuprofen (e.g. Calpol or Nurofen), it is best to keep your child at home. This is because these medicines can wear off during the day.

Has your child vomited or had diarrhoea?

Children should stay at home for 48 hours after the last episode of vomiting or diarrhoea.

Is your child experiencing symptoms of COVID-19?

If your child has symptoms of COVID-19 (coronavirus) and are feeling too unwell to come to school, you should keep them at home until your child feels better and the symptoms have disappeared.

Other illnesses

The links below can help you to decide whether your child is too unwell to come to school.

If your child is absent for any other reason

Children over the age of 5 must be at school by law, and making sure your child attends school every day is the parent’s or carer’s legal responsibility. Allowing absence from school without a good reason is illegal and can result in prosecution.

The Government directs all schools to refuse any exceptional leave, and record this as unauthorised absence.

Unauthorised absences are those which the school considers unreasonable. They are treated very seriously and can lead to Hillingdon Council’s School Participation Team using sanctions and/or legal proceedings. Absences of this type include:

• Parents/carers keeping children off school unnecessarily
• Truancy before or during the school day
• Absences which have never been properly explained
• Children who arrive at school too late to get a mark
• Shopping, looking after other children or birthdays
• Day trips, holidays, family functions or visiting relatives abroad in term time
• Excessive absence for illness without medical evidence

The school is required to inform the Participation Team at Hillingdon Council of any unauthorised absence and they could issue a Fixed Penalty Notice. The penalty is a fine of £60 per parent, per child – which rises to £120 per parent if it is not paid within 21 days.

If a child is consistently absent even after these sanctions, parents can be taken to court and be prosecuted.

Lateness

Poor punctuality is not acceptable. If your child misses the start of the day they can miss work and do not spend time with their class teacher getting vital information and news for the school day. Lateness can disrupt other pupils, can be embarrassing for the child and can also encourage absence.

The day starts at 8.50am and we expect your child to be in class at that time. Registers are returned to the office by 9.05am – any children who arrive between then and 9.30am will be given a late mark and recorded as an authorised absence.

At 9:30am the registers are closed. If your child arrives after that time they will receive a late mark and will be classified as an unauthorised absence. This means that you could face the possibility of a Penalty Notice if the problem continues.

If your child is late regularly you will be asked to meet with the Head Teacher and/or Attendance Officer to resolve the problem, but you can approach us at any time if you are having problems getting your child to school on time.

Supporting your child to attend regularly

While any child may be off school because they are ill, sometimes they can be worried about coming to school. Any problems with regular attendance are best sorted out between the school, the parents and the child. If your child is reluctant to attend, it is never better to cover up their absence or to give in to pressure to excuse them from attending. This gives the impression that attendance does not matter and usually makes things worse.

You can support your child by:

• keeping to regular and early bed times
• helping with homework
• having uniform and equipment prepared the night before
• providing a healthy breakfast, or joining our Breakfast Club
• reporting any academic or social concerns promptly
• retaining open and honest communication with the school
• being positive about school (even if your own experience was less than positive!)
• encouraging your child to invite friends home for play dates.

If you have concerns about your child’s attendance or punctuality, please do not hesitate to contact the school to arrange an appointment with the Head Teacher.

Absence monitoring and improvement

We have targets to improve attendance and punctuality and your child has an important part to play in meeting these targets.

The minimum level of attendance for this school is 95% and we will keep you updated regularly about our progress and how your child’s attendance compares.

However, our aim is to achieve better than this, because we know that good attendance is the key to successful schooling. Therefore we closely monitor absences and punctuality throughout the school year to show us where improvements need to be made. We publish attendance figures in our weekly Newsletter which show the attendance levels of the academic year so far. We also hold Attendance Awards every fortnight in which the classes with the highest attendance in each year group are awarded the Attendance Cup. At the end of the school year, children whose attendance for the year exceeds 98% will be rewarded with a certificate and small prize.