Attendance and Absence

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Working Together to Improve Attendance

You can find our full Twynham Learning Attendance Strategy here.

This Policy details the Twynham School specific processes and procedures regarding attendance and punctuality.

The School Day

• The school day starts at 8:40am and finishes at 3:15pm. Students are expected to be in their tutor room/assembly/line up ready to start the day at 8:40am.
• Registers will remain open for 30 minutes. This means that the morning register closes at 9:10am and the afternoon register closes at 2:45pm.  Any pupil arriving after this time will be marked as absent (U Code) for the duration of the morning or afternoon session, as applicable. 
• For the purposes of attendance, there are two sessions each day when attendance will formally be recorded. This is during AM tutor time/assembly and during Period 5 each day.
• Timings of the school day are as follows:

This equates to 32.92 hours over a typical week.

School Staff

All school staff have a responsibility to support good attendance.

Should you need to discuss any matter relating to attendance, please contact the following staff:

To report an unexpected absence	Contact school by 8:40am on the first and every day of absence, via the Arbor Parent App or the dedicated absence phone line: 01202 486237
To request a planned absence	Complete a Request for a Leave of Absence Form. An electronic copy is available to download on our website. Completed forms should be sent to: office@twynhamschool.com
Day to day questions about attendance or to discuss your child specifically	Your child’s form tutor – this will be written in their school planner
For more detailed support on attendance	Your child’s Head of Year – this is recorded in the school planner
To discuss a medical need	Email our welfare team on: medical@twyhamschool.com
Advice or support for pupils who are persistently absent (10% or more absence) or severely absent (50% or more absence)	Email our school based social worker on: Erin.clarke@twynhamschool.com
To report a more serious concern or complaint in regard to our attendance policy or processes	Email Mrs Fiona Ordway, Assistant Headteacher on: Fiona.ordway@twynhamschool.com

 

Our Senior Attendance Champion is:  

Mrs Fiona Ordway Assistant Headteacher Fiona.Ordway@twynhamschool.com

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Attendance Procedures

Incentivising Good Attendance

We will visibly celebrate and incentivise good attendance through all aspects of school life, and specifically, through the following:

• Building positive and respectful relationships between staff and students
• Setting high expectations for attendance and behaviour and communicating these clearly to pupils, parents and staff
• Having a broad and balanced curriculum which is accessible to all students
• Encouraging and promoting extra-curricular activities, trips and visit
• Greeting students at the start and end of the day
• Highlighting the link between attainment and attendance and future plans
• Adopting the strategy, ‘listen, understand, empathise and support – but do not tolerate” when it comes to supporting those with poor attendance
• Developing a high quality character education
• School displays
• Assemblies
• Registration/form time
• Student planners
• Positive conversations with staff
• Parental meetings
• Tracking of weekly attendance patterns and trends

Unexplained absence

• If the school does not have contact from a parent, an email will be sent to parents, and where relevant, social workers.
• If the school does not receive a response to the email, a phone call will be made to all named contacts for the child.
• Where absence is recorded as unexplained in the attendance register, the correct code should be inputted as soon as the reason is ascertained, but no later than 5 working days after the session.  

Third day absence

• If contact has not been established with any of the named contacts, after three days of absence the school will undertake all reasonable enquiries to establish contact, including making enquiries with wider friends or family or by completing a home visit.

Ten days absence

• We have a legal duty to report the absence of any child who is absent from school for a duration of 10 days, to the Local Authority’s School Attendance Support Team. If a child is absent for any reason for a duration of 10 days or more, the school will contact the family and arrange to speak directly to the child to fulfil our safeguarding responsibilities.

Lateness/punctuality

• It is essential that students arrive punctually to school and to lessons. Centralised sanctions will be implemented for those students who are regularly late to registration and lessons. Please note, the morning register will close at 9:10am. Any student arriving after this time will be marked as absent for the duration of the morning session.
• Ongoing and repeated lateness may be reported to the Local Authority’s School Attendance Support Team.

Reducing Persistent and Severe Absence

• We will work in partnership with pupils and parents collaboratively to remove any barriers to attendance by building relationships and working together to put the right support in place.  
• We believe it is important that parents are informed about their child’s attendance and have a support plan in place which focuses on working with parents and children to improve attendance where it falls below our expected attendance of 95%. Details of this can be found in our Attendance Support Plan (in our Attendance Policy and on this website page).