Attendance

Southway is committed to providing the very best possible education and we believe that regular attendance is essential to every child’s success. 

Research links attendance with achievement, indicating that even occasional broken weeks can have a negative effect on children’s progress. We believe that the most important factor in promoting good attendance is the development of positive attitudes towards school.

Celebrating Attendance

We celebrate individual children’s attendance by sending home special letters and we award certificates to classes who have the highest attendance each week.

Lateness

The law requires children to attend school regularly and this includes arriving on time each day. It is a parent’s responsibility to ensure that their child arrives promptly for registration. The registers are taken at 8.45am and close at 9.05am. Children arriving between these times will be marked as late, children arriving after 9.05am will be recorded as absent for the morning session.

Illness

If your child is too unwell to attend school, please call the school’s dedicated absence line before 9.30am on 01243 810200 and press 1 to report your child absent.  Please leave a brief message stating your child’s name and class, the reason for absence and likely date of return. 

Please be aware that any absences with reasons not provided are recorded as unauthorised. If your child is off sick for 5 or more consecutive days, the school may ask you to provide supporting evidence. This can be a medical appointment card, a copy of a prescription or prescribed medication for your child. The school reserves the right to code absence as unauthorised where no such evidence is provided. 

Medical Appointments

Whenever possible, medical appointments should be made outside school hours. If it is absolutely necessary for your child to attend a medical appointment during the school day, we will need to see an appointment card in order to authorised the absence.

Holidays in term time

A head teacher can only grant a leave of absence in exceptional circumstances. A family holiday during term time does not qualify as “exceptional circumstances” so these requests for leave of absence will be refused. 

If you consider that your request for absence is exceptional, please complete an Absence Request Form

Please be aware that if your request is declined and you nevertheless take your child out of school, the absence will be recorded as unauthorised. Unauthorised absence may result in a Fixed Penalty Notice being issued which means a fine of £60 per parent per child if paid within 28 days of receipt of the notice; but rising to £120 if paid after 28 days. If the fine remains unpaid, the Local Authority will consider instigating a prosecution in the Magistrates Court for the original offence of poor school attendance. You can find our more in our Guide to Fixed Penalty Notices.