Attendance
Attendance is a priority here at Newbridge House as it is an important element in what makes a successful pupil. We heavily support attendance with phone calls, text messages, home visits and transport for our students. We also actively celebrate excellent attendance with half termly rewards and annual certificates.
Attendance Matters
Children who attend school regularly are more likely to be successful. A child who misses a day of school each week misses an equivalent of two whole years in their school life. Missing school leads to gaps in education that become difficult to fill.
Our strategy to ensure attendance expectations are met fall into five stages:
Reporting an absence
If your child is sick, you have a legal requirement to inform school on each day of absence. Please call our school office on 01229 407470 by 9am on every day of the absence to speak to a member of staff or leave a message clearly stating the reason for absence. We would prefer parents to contact this way rather than to contact our engagements officers work mobiles as call or text may not be received in a timely manner. Just reporting that your child as “poorly” or “under the weather” is not enough, please let us know the reason/condition that is preventing school attendance.
If you fail to inform the school, we are legally required to contact you or any other named contacted, this may include a home visit. Prolonged periods of absence could result in the school contacting the police to conduct a welfare visit.
Punctuality
Punctuality is an essential life skill which transfers into adulthood. We expect our pupils to be in school on time, every day.
Staff will be outside the school gate to welcome students at 8:45, we expect students to be in school for 9am when registration starts, our main gate will be shut at 9:10. If students come to school after 9:10am they will be signed in and processed through our main entrance. Arriving late results in lost learning.
Pupils arriving late will lose time from break and potentially lunch depending on the severity of lateness. In extreme or consistent instances of lateness we may keep students afterschool.
Please encourage your child to get a good night’s sleep to ensure they are in the best possible mindset to learn in the morning.
If punctuality continues to be a problem, we will contact you to make an appointment to discuss your child’s timekeeping and offer support. Persistent lateness can lead to unauthorised marks which will contribute to legal intervention.
Medical Appointments
Wherever possible, all non-emergency appointments should be made out of school hours. Where appointments are made during school hours, there is an exception that your child attends school before and after the appointment to minimise lost learning. All appointments must be substantiated by evidence, without which we are unable to authorise the absence. Examples of accepted evidence include:
- Doctors notes
- Prescriptions
- labels from prescribed medication obtained during the period of absence
- appointment letters/cards
- referral letters
Home Visits
Home visits can be made to check on the wellbeing of a pupil for one of the following reasons:
- No contact for the absence of a pupil
- School refusal
- Poor attendance
- Long term illness support
- Safeguarding concerns
- Family Support
Home visits are part of our continued support of pupils and their families.
Legal Intervention
As a school we are required to follow legal processes and have statutory duties and expectations from the Local Authority. Legal proceedings can continue across academic years, so if attendance is poor and unauthorised at the end of the year, monitoring and referrals will continue into the new academic year in September.