At BFHA we are constantly striving to improve our attendance and we want every child to achieve at least 97% attendance or higher throughout the school year.  This ensures our children are in the best position to make continued progress in all areas.

In order to gain maximum benefit from their education, it is important that your child attends school every day; every single day missed or late arrival equals a gap in your child’s learning. It is very hard for children to catch up when they have missed out vital parts of their education.

Attendance Procedure

If you child is absent from school/nursery, you should call the school office before 9am to inform us.

Please do not use Class Dojo or Facebook to send messages regarding attendance as these may not be seen by this time in the morning and will result in you being called by our office staff.

It is vital that we know the reason for children’s absence from school and we will endeavour to follow our attendance and safeguarding procedures to ensure that we know where a child is if they are not at school.

• If we have not received a phone call explaining your child’s absence, our office staff will try calling the first contact in our system. If there is no answer, a text message will be sent reminding the contact to call the school.
• If there is still no contact after 20 minutes, our office staff will attempt to call other contacts on the list and send a second text message voicing our concern about the child’s absence.
• If we have still not received any contact after this, we will send a final text message explaining that we will complete a safe and wellbeing check. This is in line with our safeguarding procedures.

Lateness 

We recognise that persistent lateness is: 

• detrimental to the child's education 
• administratively disruptive 
• a poor preparation for future schooling and adult life. 
• All pupils arriving after registration periods have ended have to sign in at the office.  
• Pupils arriving within 20 minutes of registration closing will receive a late mark L and the minutes late will be recorded on Scholarpack. 
• Pupils arriving more than 20 minutes after registration has closed will receive a U mark which is an unauthorised absence and the minutes late will be recorded on Scholarpack. 
• If the reason for lateness beyond 9.20am/1.35pm is an exceptional circumstance as agreed by the Headteacher then code ‘L’ will be used. 
• Parents whose children regularly arrive late will receive warning letters from school.   If warning letters are ignored and punctuality does not improve, the child’s parent will be invited to a meeting with the Head Teacher.  Extreme cases may be referred to the Targeted Support Service.                  

Attendance Concerns

Pupils attendance is monitored on a weekly basis and any attendance concerns will firstly be addressed by your child’s class teacher.

If your child’s attendance drops below 90%, you will be issued with an attendance letter from Miss Leek. In this instance, we are highlighting your child’s attendance percentage and offering support to improve this.

Attendance under 90% is considered persistent absenteeism.

Should your child’s attendance continue to decrease or fail to improve, a second letter will be issued and you will be asked to attend an attendance meeting with Miss Leek and Ms Hinton, our Family Support Worker. An Attendnace Plan will be created with input from all parties and reviewed regularly to ensure improvement. Evidence of illnesses may be requested in order to authorise absences where attendance has fallen significantly below 90%. 

In extreme circumstances, where there are significant attendance concerns, poor attendance over an extended period of time, or where there are a number of unexplained absences, further action may be taken such as an attendance enforcement EHAF.

Penalty Notices

In line with Nottinghamshire Local Authority regulations, any unauthorised leave of absence, whether for holidays, (persistent) lateness beyond 9.20 am and 1.35pm, or any other form of unauthorised absence, of more than 3 days or 6 half day sessions (over a 6 week rolling period) will lead to parents/carers being issued with an Education Penalty Notice per child:

• If paid within 21 days, the fine will be £60 per child

• If paid after 21 days, the fine will be £120 per child

All adults responsible for care of the child can be fined. Payment must be paid direct to the Local Authority and parents can be prosecuted if 28 days have expired and full payment has not been made. Where a fine remains unpaid, the matter will be enforced at the Magistrates Court. The maximum fine for this offence is up to £1000 per parent, per child.

The Local Authority will not issue more than two Education Penalty Notices per calendar year to any person taking more than two periods of unauthorised absence. Where further absences occur or where the Local Authority deems it appropriate, enforcement will be dealt with directly through the Magistrate Court.