Reporting an Absence
Reporting Your Child's Absence
If your child is not able to attend school, please contact our attendance line on the initial day of absence and subsequently each day before 8.30am, providing details of the absence. This also includes any medical appointments. If a phone call is not received, the school will contact parents via a message sent from Arbor to establish your child’s whereabouts, if still no contact has been made, a phone call from the Attendance Officer will follow – this is a safeguarding requirement. If no contact is made the absence will be unauthorised.
On returning to school, if your child has medical evidence to support their absence, for example: a doctors note, please hand this into the main office in Old Hall or email it to jcook@ttlt.org.uk
Medical Appointments will only be authorised on receipt of relevant documentation from the appropriate agency.
It is also important to inform us of any personal issues or changes of circumstance that might affect your child’s attendance.
Medical/Dental Appointments
If a pupil has a medical appointment that cannot be conducted out of school hours, written medical evidence from the appropriate agency needs to be supplied to the Attendance Officer, either before the appointment or upon returning from the appointment. Medical evidence should be handed to the main office in Old Hall or emailed to jcook@ttlt.org.uk
The sessions missed due to medical appointments will be given an ‘M = medical’ mark. It is important to note that ‘M’ marks do not count towards the pupils overall attendance, but is kept on file as supporting evidence for a pupils attendance; this is in accordance with DfE and Local Authority legislation.
Holiday Absences
The Department for Education has announced important changes to legislation surrounding holidays in term time.
References to ‘family holiday’ and ‘extended leave’ have now been removed from DFE guidance. These new amendments make it clear that Headteachers may not grant any leave of absence during term time unless there are “exceptional circumstances”. The guidance allows no entitlement to parents to take their child on holiday during term time.
To illustrate the impact of taking holidays during term time, it was noted in the DFE’s recent review that, if a child is taken for a two week holiday every year and has the average number of days off for sickness/appointments, then during their school career they will have missed the equivalent of a whole year of school.
Up until this point, Westwood College has always considered applications for leave of absence sympathetically, and authorised term time absence, providing certain criteria was met. This can no longer be the case.
In light of recent changes to legislation regarding school attendance, we kindly request that parents and carers complete a Leave of Absence form should they still wish to request leave during term time. This enables us to accurately record the reason for your child’s absence and ensures that our safeguarding procedures are upheld.
It is important to point out that, in an attempt to address poor attendance and unauthorised absences, the Local Authority may decide to issue a fixed penalty fine and/or prosecute parents under the Education Act 1996 if a holiday is taken during term time.