Parent and carer responsibilities

Your legal responsibility as a parent or carer is to ensure that your child or children of school age receive a suitable full-time education.  Once enrolled in school, it remains the parent or carer's legal responsibility to ensure that their child attends school regularly and arrives on time each day.

For our children to gain the greatest benefit from their education it is vital that they attend regularly and be at school, on time, every day the school is open unless the reason for the absence is unavoidable.

Any absence affects the pattern of a child’s schooling and regular absence will seriously affect their learning. Any pupil’s absence or later arrival disrupts teaching routines and so may affect the learning of others in the same class.

Types of Absence

Every half-day absence from school has to be classified by the school (not by the parents), as either AUTHORISED or UNAUTHORISED. This is why information about the cause of any absence is always required. Authorised absences are mornings or afternoons away from school for a good reason like illness, medical/dental appointments which unavoidably fall in school time, emergencies or other unavoidable cause.

Unauthorised absences are those which the school does not consider reasonable and for which no “leave" has been given. This type of absence can lead to the Authority using sanctions and/or legal proceedings. This includes:

• parents/carers keeping children off school unnecessarily
• truancy before or during the school day
• absences which have never been properly explained
• children who arrive at school too late to get a mark
• shopping, looking after other children or birthdays
• day trips and holidays in term time which have not been agreed.

Whilst any child may be off school because they are ill, sometimes they can be reluctant to attend school. Any problems with regular attendance are best sorted out between the school, the parents and the child. If a parent thinks their child is reluctant to attend school then we will work with that family to understand the root problem. We can use outside agencies to help with this such as the School Nurse or Trafford Team Together.

Promoting Attendance

Helping to create a pattern of regular attendance is everybody’s responsibility - parents, pupils and all members of school staff. To help us all to focus on this we will:

• Give parents/carers details on attendance in our newsletters.
• Report to parents/carers annually on how their child’s attendance with the annual school report.
• Report to parents at parents’ evening in the Autumn and Spring Terms.
• Contact parents/carers should their child’s attendance fall below 95%.
• Celebrate good attendance.

Impact of Lateness

Lateness impacts on both the child and the class:

Child

• Misses first part of a  lesson.
• Disrupts other children.
• Feels vulnerable and different by arriving late in class.
• Can perform marginally worse than peers academically.
• Misses important morning announcements.

Class

• Teacher having to repeat instructions.
• Disrupted when child walks in.
• Attainment is effected by lateness.
• Late marks can effect the class attendance figures if the child is late after the register closes.

Remember: Being 15 minutes late each day is the same as missing two weeks of school!

Reporting Absence

Parents/carers MUST report their child's absence or reason for lateness via the school absence line on 0161 980 8338 or to the school office email admin@cloverlea.org.uk. If an absence continues past one day the school office team must be informed each day, unless previously agreed that this is not necessary.