Attendance & Punctuality

At Lamberhead Green Academy we know the more time your child is with us in school, the greater the impact we can have on their academic progress and personal development. Excellent attendance really does matter!

Regular attendance at school is very important to your child’s education. Children with good attendance enjoy school and learning more and this has a significant impact on their learning and outcomes. As a parent, it is your legal responsibility to make sure your child attends school regularly. It is our responsibility to support good attendance and effectively monitor all absence from school. Orrell Lamberhead Green Academy’s attendance target is at least 97%.

We monitor attendance closely to ensure disruption to your child’s learning is minimised. Whilst scoring 90% on a test might be considered good, in attendance terms it means your child is missing one day per fortnight of school. Overtime, missed days add up and causes children to fall behind their peers. If your child’s attendance falls below 97%, we will contact you to let you know we will be monitoring your child’s attendance. We can offer support and work with you to improve attendance and your child’s learning and achievement. If your child’s attendance falls below 90% (the governments benchmark for persistent absence or PA), we will invite you into school to discuss further ways in which we can work together with you to improve your child’s attendance.

If you are worried about your child’s attendance, please contact school so that we can resolve any problems together.

Reporting your child absent

If your child is going to be absent you must ring 01942 768760 (option 1) and leave a message with the reason why your child is absent. As a school, the welfare of our children is important. We follow a clear process when confirming why a child is absent:

  1. Registers are taken in class, any late or absence messages are updated through the office.

  2. If no message has been received, a text message will be sent to the first contact asking you to contact the school.

  3. If no message is received, the school will try to contact you by phone to find out why your child is absent.

  4. If we are unable to contact the first/second contact we have, then a home visit will be carried out.

  5. If after a home visit we still have been unable to contact anyone, then we may need to report your child as missing to the police.

Arriving on time

We are grateful to all our families who ensure their children arrive at school on time to enter the building through the correct door each day. It really does support the children to have a calm start to the school day. It is important that your child attends school each day and arrives on time. Classroom doors open at 8:45am with learning activities available for children as soon as they arrive. Please make sure children arrive at school ready to learn by 8:55am. Children who arrive late often feel unsettled and it takes longer for them to access the lessons. We want all children to feel happy in school and ready to do their BEST and being in school on time certainly helps this happen.

Absence in term time

Your children attend school for 190 days out of 365. This leaves 175 days for holidays! Please book your family holidays during these 175 days of school holiday time. Leave of absence in term time cannot be authorised, unless there are exceptional circumstances (1-day wedding of parents, people in the armed forces).

If you do take your child on a leave of absence during term time and they miss 5 days or more and are of statutory school age, you will receive a Fixed Penalty Notice from the Local Authority. This is currently £80 if paid within 21 days or £160 if paid within 28 days. This charge is per parent, per child. If the Fixed Penalty Notice remains unpaid this could lead to prosecution in the Magistrates Court.

If a second Penalty Notice is issued to the same parent, for the same pupil within 3 years of the first notice, the second notice is charged at a flat rate of £160 per parent per pupil, if paid within 28 days.

A third penalty notice must not be issued within a 3 year period. Therefore in cases where the threshold is met for a third or subsequent times, within those 3 years, alternative action will be taken instead. This will will often include considered prosecution.