Attendance Matters

Abbey College believes in the fundamental right of the student to be educated to their full potential and to participate in the life of the Abbey College community. We encourage our students to be aspirational individuals, this forms a part of our core values. Good attendance and punctuality at school is key to attainment and therefore enables students to achieve at their highest possible level.

Abbey College:

• recognises the importance of attendance in enabling students to achieve their maximum educational potential and to have optimum life chances and enter adulthood successfully.
• is committed to working in partnership with families and other agencies to achieve the best outcomes for young people.
• provides a welcoming and caring environment where all members of the academy community feel secure and valued.
• has an effective system of communication with students and parents/carers to support good attendance and timekeeping and to provide appropriate information and advice.
• will use an appropriate system of rewards and incentives to recognise the effort students make in achieving good attendance and punctuality.
• follows Department of Education guidance and best practice in the use of Penalty Notices.

At Abbey College we recognise that there is a very clear relationship between the regularity with which students attend school and their academic achievement.

Students with good attendance records benefit from:

• Continuity of learning in lessons.
• Improved performance in examinations.
• Support and guidance with coursework.
• Maintaining friendships.
• Developing good habits for adult life.
• References for further education or employment highlighting their reliability.

We therefore ask for your support to keep absenteeism to a minimum, so that we can prepare your son/daughter effectively for their future.

Students should be on school site no later than 8.35 am, the school day starts at 8.40 am and we expect all students to be in class at that time. Most students should have attendance rates of 97% or more. This is the equivalent of 6 days absent per year. BUT 100% is achieved by many students every year. As parents and carers, we ask you to work with us to promote and reward good attendance and punctuality.

Report a Student Absence

If your child is unwell and unable to attend school you have a legal requirement to inform the school on each day of absence.

If you are reporting your child’s absence from school you can do this via email  or call 01487 812352 option 1.

Absences should be reported by 8:30am every day of the absence. If you leave a message clearly stating Student Name, Form Group and Reason for Absence (a brief description of the illness).

If you fail to inform the school, we are legally required to make contact with you, to ensure the child’s safety. Even if they have been absence on the previous day, we cannot assume they are still at home poorly.

Please be aware that we require a notification for every day that the pupil is absent. If your child is absent for more than three days, parents/carers may receive a phone call home or a home visit to see if any support is required.

On returning to the College it is the student’s responsibility to catch up on work missed.

Appointments

If your child has an appointment you are required to inform the school by via  or call 01487 812352 option 1 with the dates and timings. Students should be in school prior to/after the appointment.

Planned Absence

If you would like to request a planned absence from school, please inform the school by via email   

Holidays in Term Time

As a College we recognise that financial pressures and work commitments sometimes make it difficult to take holidays outside of school time.  However, parents/carers cannot avoid the fact that students will only have one chance to get their education right and for the staff at the College to do their very best for your child we ask that you support us in this matter, therefore, holidays will not be authorised for students as the lessons they miss will have a detrimental effect on their GCSEs and academic success.

If a student takes unauthorised term time leave for 10 consecutive sessions or more (generally 5 days) they will be subject to a penalty notice. The fine for a penalty notice is increasing - to £80 per parent, per child. This increases to £160 if paid after 21 days but within 28 days for pupils who are of statutory school age. If a penalty notice remains unpaid, parents may be the subject of court proceedings for failing to ensure the regular school attendance of their child and this could result in a fine of up to £2,500 and/or a term of imprisonment of up to 3 months per parent.

For second offences of unauthorised term time leave (10 consecutive sessions or more) within a three-year rolling period, the fine is a flat £160 per parent, per child.

For the third offence in a three-year rolling period, the referral will be automatically considered for prosecution in relation to Section 444 Education Act 1996.

These fines will apply to term time leave taken after 19^th August 2024. Previous penalty notices from the last 3 years will be taken into account when a period of term time leave is taken after the 19^th August 2024. Therefore, if parents have already received one penalty notice in the last three years, they will get a fine of £160 per parent per child for their next one. If they have received two or more in the last three years, they should expect to be referred for prosecution.

Impact of attendance on GCSE outcome (national data)

Academic research suggests an inverse relation between absences and students' performance reflected on their grades. In this context, inverse relation is understood as, as long as absences increase (decrease), school performance decrease (increase).

At 96% attendance – 73% of students achieve five good grades at GCSE (9-4) including English and Maths, however even at 96% attendance a student would have missed 45 hours of learning.

19 days off per school year means that a pupil has approx. 90% attendance. At 90% attendance your child will have missed 97 lessons in one year! If this trend went throughout the 5 years a child is at secondary school, this would equate to half a year of missing school time in total.

The research shows that for every 17 days missed from school a child is likely to drop one GCSE grade in EVERY subject. Only 35% of those with attendance between 80-90% will achieve five good grades (9-4) at GCSE including English and Maths.

You can see your child’s attendance by checking MCAS.

Further information can be found here.