Don’t miss a moment of the most important and enjoyable years of your life!

At Furze Platt Junior School we know that regular attendance is directly linked to raising achievement and develops skills for life and work. Please support the school in this by ensuring that your child attends school regularly and arrives ready to learn and on time by 8.50am (registered taken and school day officially starts).

Punctuality is so important and it shows that the children that are regularly late do not achieve as well as those children who complete their morning 'key learning' carousel everyday (the carousel starts from 8:40am when the children are allowed to go to class).

Being 20 minutes late every day means you miss 100 minutes of learning every week. Multiply this by 39 weeks a year = 3900 minutes missed a year. Basically this is 65 hours missed a year!

Attendance Matters
Primary national pupil attendance is around 96%. This means that a child needs to attend school for at least 177 out of 190 days to meet national expectations.

Understanding types of absence
Every ½ day absence from school, by law, has to be classified as either authorised or unauthorised. This is why information about the cause of absence is always asked for.

Authorised absences are mornings or afternoons away from school for a good reason such as illness, medical appointments and emergencies.

An absence is classified as Unauthorised, if the reason was not recognised as acceptable. The Department for Education (DfE) and Local Education Authorities provide information for schools as what is acceptable and what is not.

Examples of reasons that would not be accepted:

A birthday
A shopping trip
Day trips
Holidays – unless have been agreed as exceptional circumstances

What should I do if my child is absent from school?
Contact the school office on the first morning before and notify us of the absence and provide a reason.
School will phone on Day 1 of an absence and do a home visit after 2 days.

Punctuality

The school playground is open from 8:35am. The duty member of staff will ask children to begin going in to cloakrooms and classrooms at 8:40am in order for all pupils to be in class, ready to learn, from 8:50am (the gate will close at 9:00am).

The school gate will then re-open at 3:15pm.

It is very important that all children arrive on time. If your child arrives late, they will not be able to come into school via usual morning entrance doors but should instead come through the main school entrance. We will then be able to mark registers and ensure your child is marked for a school dinner.

Please note that if your children arrives at school later than 9:00 (when formal lessons start), we are required to mark them as absent for that half day session.

If children are regularly late, a parent will be expected to attend a meeting to look at how punctuality can be improved.

Attendance Monitoring
As attendance and punctuality is so important to us, we cannot be complacent where there are instances of unacceptable, low pupil attendance, or if pupils are regularly late to school.

RBWM authority is keen that we adopt measures and involve external agencies if the level of attendance requires us to do so. We have a school attendance target set at 97% or above for all pupils.

Holidays...

Dear parent/carer

I would like to advise you about important changes to legislation announced by the Department for Education (DfE) with regard to holidays in term time.

From 1 September 2013, schools are no longer allowed to authorise any requests for children to be taken out of school for a holiday during term time.

Requests for leave can only be granted in exceptional circumstances, and a holiday would not be considered exceptional. Requests for leave must also be made to the school in advance, as the DfE have told schools that they cannot authorise any absences after they have been taken.

Parents may receive a penalty notice if their child is absent from school without permission.

We appreciate the challenges that some parents face when booking holidays, particularly during the school holidays. However, regular attendance at school is vital in helping children and young people to achieve their full potential and get the best possible start in life.

Term Time Absence

Requests for term time absence need to be made using the Leave of Absence form - available from the school office or via the link below. 

Holidays should not be taken during term time and will be recorded as unauthorised.

Requests for term time absence should be made at least 14 days before the start date.

Please see the policy and documents below for full information.

FPJS Attendance Lead is Mike Wallace