Attendance

Is Your Child Missing Out?

Attend Today & Achieve Tomorrow at East Park Primary School!

Research has shown that regular attendance and good punctuality are crucial factors in pupils achieving their full potential in education. At East Park Primary School, we wish to work in partnership with parents and carers, and so are seeking your full support in ensuring that your child attends school every day and on time. We are always pleased to work together with parents/carers in resolving any difficulties, but we are also committed to improving attendance levels at school.

The target attendance figure for all pupils is a minimum of 97% attendance.

East Park Primary School is monitoring pupils closely whose attendance is falling and will contact you if your child’s attendance does not improve. As a parent/carer, you are committing an offence if you fail to ensure that your child attends school regularly and punctually.

Good Attendance is Rewarded!

Good attendance is encouraged through our reward system at East Park Primary. We love to reward children for their amazing attendance and therefore we have a number of different initiatives in place including our half-termly and termly draws for all pupils with 100% attendance to receive a voucher or prize. Class certificates for attendance and punctuality are also received.

Our Focus on Attendance: How You Can Help

Ensure your child attends every day, on time, equipped and ready to learn. The lower school opens at 8:30 am and the upper school opens at 8:35. All pupils need to be in school buildings no later than 8:40 am. Pupils arriving after 9:10 am may be marked absent and will require an explanation from the parent/carer or the absence will remain unauthorised.
Ensure school has up-to-date addresses and telephone numbers. We will contact you if your child is absent and you have not contacted school. This ensures that the absence is quickly identified.
If your child is ill, contact school on the first day of absence and provide an explanation and continue to ring each day after that.
If you wish to check that your child has arrived at school, contact the admin team. They will inform you if your child has been registered.
If no contact is received regarding an absence, it is recorded as unauthorised. Ultimately school is responsible for deciding if the absence is acceptable or not. Only a genuine absence will be authorised. You will be asked to provide medical information/appointment bookings/certificates etc. for absences of an extended length.
Ensure that medical appointments are made outside of school time.
Avoid trivial absences such as day trips/birthdays. This would not be accepted as a reasonable absence.
Respond to letters, telephone calls or visits regarding attendance and punctuality.
Contact your child’s class teacher or the school well-being officer if you are experiencing difficulty in getting your child into school.
Holidays should not be taken in school time as there are 13 weeks a year for a family trip. Any Leave of Absence can only be agreed upon by the Headteacher and only agreed where there are exceptional circumstances.

The Department for Education (DfE) defines "exceptional circumstances" for school attendance as one-off, unavoidable events like the death of a close relative, certain medical appointments, and housing crises. Schools handle these requests on a case-by-case basis, and headteachers have the discretion to authorise a leave of absence for exceptional circumstances, but holidays are very rarely considered exceptional.

If the school is concerned about your child's attendance, you will receive attendance letters and be invited to a meeting with the attendance team to discuss the attendance issues and provide support.

Thank you for working in partnership with us to achieve the highest possible levels of attendance and punctuality at East Park Primary School! More information regarding attendance can be found in our attendance policies.