Attendance

Gates open at 8.40am and close at 8.55am. Registration is taken at 9am, so it is
crucial that children arrive promptly by 8.55am. The school day finishes at 3.10pm.

Please report any child’s absence or lateness by calling our School office on
01908 679354 or email office@falconhurstschool.co.uk by 9am on the day of
absence/lateness and for each day following. If the school is not contacted, a call
home will be made to ensure all children are accounted for. 

Please note: 
If you do not call to report lateness for your child and a school lunch is booked, this will cause meals to be cancelled and a packed lunch to be brought in. 

Children with diarrhoea and/or vomiting should be kept off school until 48 hours after
their symptoms have gone. We would ask that you still contact the school on each
day of absence to keep us updated
Please find a link to the NHS guidance around illness and whether your child is
able to attend school 


Here is a link to the NHS guidance around illness and whether your child is
able to attend school: 
Is my child too ill to attend school?

Authorised and Unauthorised Absence

Where a child is absent at the time of registration, the law requires schools to
indicate on their attendance register whether the absence is authorised or
unauthorised.
Authorised absence means that the school has either given approval in advance for
the child to be away or that an explanation offered afterwards has been accepted.
The law requires that absences not agreed in advance are recorded as
unauthorised, unless (and until) a satisfactory explanation is given.
The school will:
- investigate all unexplained absences;
- contact parents on the first day of absence for an explanation if no message is
received.
- contact parents if it has any concerns over attendance;
- Withdraw a Nursery place if attendance falls below the minimum requirement.
By law, only the school can approve absence, not parents. The school need not
accept a parental explanation for a child's absence if it doubts the explanation. If the
school is satisfied that the circumstances are both genuine and exceptional, the
absence may be authorised.
Excessive amounts of authorised absence can disrupt continuity of learning. The
school will, therefore, watch for emerging patterns of authorised absence by
individual children.

Examples of Unauthorised Absence

The school cannot accept any of the following:
- Shopping during school hours;
- Special occasions, e.g. birthdays; visiting family
- No uniform, shoes, etc.;
- Overslept;
- Haircut;
- At home due to family illness
- Children arriving at school after the register has closed (Arriving after 9:20am)
- Family Holidays

Any planned Leave of Absence during term time should be requested at least 2
weeks prior to the period of absence requested. A Leave of Absence Form should be
completed and handed into the School Office for review by the Attendance Office
and the Head Teacher, Mrs Aird. A Letter will then be sent to you confirming if the
leave requested has been authorised or not. Term time leave can only be authorised
in exceptional circumstances.


Please collect a Leave of Absence form from the school office or print one at home 

Leave of absence request form

- Headteachers are no longer allowed to authorise requests for children to be
taken out of school in term time. If you take leave which is not authorised by the
school then the matter will be referred to the Local Authority who will consider the
issue of a Fixed Penalty Notice. Falconhurst School and Little Falcons Nursery
follows the Local Authorities guidance.

- If Parents/Carers take children out of school, which results in the child missing 10
or more sessions, (5 school days) a referral will be sent to the Local Authority.
Fixed Penalty Notices (FPN) are issued to each parent and are for each child. A
FPN is £80 if paid within 21 days, and £160 if paid between 22 and 28 days. If
the fine is not paid, parents will be prosecuted in the magistrates’ court and could
receive a fine of up to £1000 (per parent) and a criminal record. Fines can now
be issued if there are 10 unauthorised sessions in 10 school weeks.

- If a second period of leave is taken within 3 years (same parent/child) then the
fine will start at £160 payable in 28 days. If there is a third offence in 3 years
(same parent/child) then the matter will be prosecuted in the magistrate’s court.

- The school will follow the guidance as set out in the ‘School Attendance Policy’ in
relation to non-school attendance and Code of Conduct for the issue of Fixed
Penalty Notices. Further information can be found here.

There are legal obligations on parents to secure education for their children of
compulsory school age, whether at school or otherwise, and to send them to school
regularly once they are on the school roll.
If the school is to achieve its attendance targets, parents must see themselves as
partners with the school in their children's education, and support the school in the
following ways:

- Ensure the fullest possible attendance of their child by keeping requests for their
children to be absent from school to a minimum;
- When absence is unavoidable, provide an explanation, preferably on the first day
of absence to the School Office by 9am
- When absence continues for more than a day, contact the school by phone to let
the school office know
- Ensure that their child arrives at school on time

Weekly Attendance Award – each week we look at which class in KS1 and KS2 has
had the highest attendance. The class with the highest attendance each week is
awarded with a trophy and certificate which is awarded in assembly that week.

Weekly – special mention in assemble and on DOJO for any class who achieves
100% attendance and certificate awarded in assemble.

Half Termly – the class in KS1 and KS2 with the highest attendance for that half term
is awarded with a class reward which they get to choose.

Half Termly – those children who achieve 100% get put into a draw to win the
opportunity to choose a book from the vending machine. The ‘Wheel of names’ is
spun during the award assembly, which chooses the winner.

Attendance ladder 

Punctuality and lost learning 

Attendance Policy

DFE guidance on working together to improve school attendance