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Meriden C E Primary School
Attendance
Good attendance means being in school at least 95% of the time (between 180 and 190 days). Our school target is 96%.
Medical Absences
When a child has been absent from school due to illness, please ring, write or send a message on each day of absence.
To ensure that illnesses do not spread around school, please ensure your child is fully fit before returning.
Please note that following NHS guidance, we do not allow children back to school until there have been 48 hours since the last bout of sickness or diarrhoea.
Leave of Absence
We recognise that positive behaviour and good attendance are central to raising standards and pupil attainment.
Schools are unable to authorise absence; leave can be requested only in exceptional circumstances, which has been documented by the Department for Education. The School Attendance Policy has been updated in line with the latest guidance from Solihull Local Authority. If leave is requested for exceptional circumstances, an absence request form can be obtained from the school office.
For clarity, where a request for leave of absence has been made and the school has sent written notification to parents that the absence will be unauthorised, a penalty notice will be issued where the trigger of 10 sessions (5 days) of unauthorised absence is met.
In all other cases of unauthorised absence accrued over time, a warning letter will be issued by the Education Welfare Service prior to a penalty notice. The trigger for a warning letter will be at least 10 sessions (5 days) of unauthorised absence.
Any child with less than 90% attendance, whether authorised, unauthorised or through illness is now classed by the Department for Education as persistently absent and may require an action plan to improve attendance.
The legislation covers children of school age, therefore Reception onwards. Although not statutory, we do encourage our Nursery children to have good attendance as well.