Attendance and punctuality is of paramount importance to children’s learning. Regular school attendance is an important part of giving your child the best possible start in life.
Going to school regularly is important for your child’s future. For example, children who miss school frequently can fall behind with their work and do less well in exams.
Good attendance shows potential employers that your child is reliable. Research suggests that children who attend school regularly could also be at less risk of getting involved in antisocial behaviour or crime.
By law, all schools are required to record details of pupils’ attendance and absence at school. They do so at the beginning of morning and afternoon sessions. If your child is absent, it is required that you inform the school with the reason for the absence.
The school will record the absence under a particular category preset by the Department of Education (DE). This data is then available to the Education Welfare Service (EWS) for each pupil. DE also receives annually the overall data for each school.
By law, all children of compulsory school age (normally four to 16) must receive a suitable full-time education. For most parents, this means registering their child at a school.
Once your child is registered at a school, you are legally responsible for making sure they attend regularly. If your child fails to do so, you risk getting a fine (each parent could be fined up to £1,000 for each child) or being prosecuted.
Here at Victoria Park Academy, we take attendance very seriously! Unfortunately, before the Christmas break we had a number of children fall ill with a nasty sickness bug; this affected the whole school attendance levels. We are very pleased that children have come back to school in the New Year feeling well and refreshed. Currently our whole school attendance is 95.6%. With attendance improving, we are aiming to be back to our whole school target of 96.1% as soon as possible.
We value your support in this matter – please speak to a member of staff if you have any issues regarding attendance and punctuality.