Letter to Parents and Carers: Attendance

Dear Parents and Carers, 

As you may have seen in the recent news there is increasing concern about pupil attendance at school in the years that have followed the Covid pandemic. Data suggests that students are more likely to have isolated days of absence more frequently. Research suggests that this is linked to the effects of lockdowns and long periods away from school, and more parents continuing to work from home in the post-pandemic world.

It is clear from student outcomes that the key to continuing progress is the building of strong foundational knowledge. This happens best when students do not have gaps in their knowledge as the result of sporadic days of absence. Whilst we accept that some absence from school is unavoidable, there is much to be gained from pushing ourselves to attend school and work.

As a school we are committed to ensuring that academic progress is supported as fully as possible. We do share attendance data on school reports as a percentage, but we are increasingly becoming concerned about a growing number of students who are regularly failing to complete full school weeks. Moving forward we will be more closely monitoring the number of non-full weeks completed by each student to try and determine areas of concern. We will then be contacting parents to share this information and offer support and guidance where necessary.

We will also be addressing this in assemblies with the students, and highlighting the significant benefits of full attendance, it is vital that this is a message supported from home.

As a consequence, we have adapted our school attendance policy to reflect the challenges after Covid and made the necessary changes required by the DfE.

If you have any concerns or questions regarding getting your child to attend school, please do make contact with the attendance team via the school enquiries email.

Thank you for your ongoing support.

Yours sincerely, 

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