Attendance & Progress

The children who are most happy and successful in school are those with the best attendance.

Academy Attendance Lead: Melanie Capes
Absence line phone no: 01476 585278

We would like to thank our parents for their commitment to their child’s attendance.

The vast majority of parents ensure that their child attends regularly and on time, meeting our academy expectation of at least 96% attendance over the year.

Fortunately, we have very few parents who do not support their child in this.

We love to see the happy faces of the children as they get to school on time to play with their friends before sitting down together, ready to learn. Children who do not get to school on time or miss some days of school altogether find it more difficult to make friends and to catch up on their learning. Please remember that our school day starts promptly at 8.50am and children who are late miss the beginning of their reading session, an important skill for them to learn.

A list of current term and holiday dates is available in school. We ask you to check these dates carefully before booking your holidays. Any request for holiday absence will be declined in line with current guidelines. Our commitment is to provide a quality education, but we do need parental support (and our children in school) to be able to do this.

If your child is ill

We know that sometimes your child may be unable to attend because they feel unwell.

In this case please contact the school office and leave a message telling us, preferably before the start of the school day. Some parents think that their child may be better off at home if they are ill, but generally we are happy to have them in school and will keep a close eye on them to make sure that they are okay, if you ask us to. We have also produced a helpful leaflet to help you to decide whether your child is well enough to come to school which can be downloaded below. We use NHS guidance to advise and you can access this yourself here.

If we do not hear from you first thing in the morning and your child is not in school, then we will try and make contact with you as quickly as possible to ensure that your child is safe. This could be by text, telephone or home visit. Please rest assured that we always pursue this until we are satisfied so you know that your child’s welfare is important to us.

Other Reasons for Absence

The vast majority of our parents recognise that their children are most happy and successful in school when they attend regularly.

For that reason, they do not ask for holidays during term time, because they know how damaging this can be for their child’s education. In the unlikely event that you want to ask for your child’s absence to be authorised due to an exceptional circumstance, then please ask to speak with the principal so that you can set out the special circumstances of your request.

If there is any other reason why you or your child is finding it difficult to attend school regularly and on time, then please do contact Mrs Capes who can help. Seeking early help, no matter the issue can help you to avoid any fines for non-attendance which can be very costly and stressful.

Rewarding Great Attendance

We love recognising good attendance and punctuality and so do our children!

The children enjoy seeing where we are in the DRET primary league table.

Absence and Fixed Penalty Notices

Amendment to Lincolnshire’s Fixed Penalty Notice procedures

FIXED PENALTY NOTICE (FPN) FOR NON-SCHOOL ATTENDANCE RE: HOLIDAYS & PERSISTENT ABSENCE

As you may be aware the DfE are intending to issue their own national, Code of Conduct for the issuing of FPNs which the Department for Education will require everyone to adopt. This is to provide consistency in the approach to FPNs. This should be with us in a number of months but in the interim Lincolnshire County Council wishes to provide an update on the requirements in Lincolnshire, for the issuing of FPN’s with revised changes in relation to FPN’s for term time holidays.

FPN: TERM TIME HOLIDAY - PARENTAL HOLIDAY REQUEST RECEIVED

Where there is a request for a term time holiday (leave of absence) that does not meet the criteria for ‘exceptional circumstances’, the school will issue a letter or email in response to parent, giving the reasons why the criteria is not met, to authorise. School will then advise the parent that they will now be requesting the Local Authority to issue an FPN, for a holiday taken during term time.

FPN: TERM TIME HOLIDAY – NO PARENTAL HOLIDAY REQUEST RECEIVED (but evidence suggests the absence was a term time holiday.

For cases where no application or request for leave is received from parents in advance of a holiday, and where there may be other factors which imply to the school, that the family were away on a holiday. The school will apply for a FPN retrospectively. School should now request an FPN from the Local Authority, without formally issuing parents with a warning letter (this relates only to holidays during term time).

Over the last 2/3 years, the use of FPN’s for term time holidays has grown and is now established nationally, as a method to discourage absence during term time.

Schools have a designated, Attendance & Safeguarding Education Welfare Officer to discuss attendance matters and should consult with them prior to requesting an FPN for persistent absence (attendance below 90%)

Our Attendance policy: https://www.ingoldsbyacademy.co.uk/docs/policies/Ingoldsby_Attendance_Policy_Appendix.pdf

https://www.dret.co.uk/docs/policies/sharedtrustpolicies/DRET_Attendance_Policy.pdf