Attendance
Regular attendance is vital for your child’s success, helping them to achieve their best and develop important life skills.
Regular attendance is vital for your child’s success, helping them to achieve their best and develop important life skills.
We believe that regular attendance is essential for students to achieve their best and benefit fully from their education. Attending school every day helps students build strong relationships, develop key life skills and prepare for future success.
Why regular attendance is so important:
We expect all students to have an attendance figure of at least 98% (this means no more than 4 days of absence per academic year).
Did you know the fact below which details the relationship between attendance and achievement?
Among pupils with no missed sessions over KS4, 83.7% achieve grades 9 to 4 in English and Maths compared to 35.6% of pupils who were persistently absent. Pupils who did not achieve grade 9 to 4 in English and Maths GCSEs had an overall absence rate of 8.8% over the key stage, compared with 5.2% among pupils who achieved a grade 4 and 3.7% among pupils who achieved grade 9 to 5 in both English and Maths.
The school acknowledges good attendance in a number of ways:
Holidays during term time will be marked as an unauthorised absence on students’ attendance record. It is important that families take holidays during periods of school holiday. Taking your child on holiday during term time could lead to a fine, as per Local Authority guidelines.
Parents must contact their child’s Year Leader and the attendance team using the email address attendance@liftkingswood.org to alert us to any planned absence.
Parents must provide a minimum of 4 school weeks notice for a holiday.
If you need to inform us that your child is going to be absent, please do so by calling 01482 879967 and select option 1. When calling to inform us of your child's absence, please be ready to share the following information:
Child's name.
Child's Year group.
Reason for absence.
If a child is absent from school, as part of our safeguarding procedures, we will complete home visits. The aim of these visits is to support families to get the student back into school as soon as possible.
Every half-day absence from Lift Kingswood, has to be classified by the Attendance Officer (not by parents/carers), as either authorised or unauthorised. This is why information about the cause of any absence is always required.
Unauthorised absences are those which Lift Kingswood cannot consider reasonable and for which no agreed leave has been granted. Examples of unauthorised absence may include:
Where possible, GP and medical appointments need to be booked outside of the school day. Please note that for students in Years 7, 8, 9 the school day ends at 3pm. For students in Year 10 your child may be required to stay until 4pm for Period 7, so all appointments must be booked after 4pm. For students in Year 11 your child may be required to stay until 5pm for Period 8, so all appointments must be booked after 5pm.
Recently Covid-19 has had a negative impact on students' ability to attend school meaning that it is now more important than ever that students do not miss lessons when it is possible to avoid doing so
If your child has no alternative but to attend an appointment during the school day, please provide us with as much notice as possible. Where this is the case, your child will be expected to attend school around the appointment and only leave for the time needed to travel to attend the appointment.
For the school to be able to authorise any absence for a medical appointment you will be required to email evidence to attendance@liftkingswood.org. This can be in the form of:
A screenshot of an email or text notification.
An image or copy of a letter from the doctor/hospital.
Parents and carers are legally responsible for ensuring their child attends school regularly and punctually. Failure to do so could result in legal action by the local authority.
Under the Education (Pupil Registration) Regulations 2006, only the school can authorise an absence – not parents or carers.
Time off for holidays during term time is not a legal right. Any request for a leave of absence must be made in advance by completing an absence form and submitting it to the school office. If a holiday is taken without permission, the absence will be recorded as ‘unauthorised’ and could result in legal action.
You can read the government advice here:
https://www.gov.uk/school-attendance-absence
From September 2024 the government has changed the criteria around when parents or carers will be fined for their child having poor attendance or going on a term time holiday. For term time holidays, fines will go up from £60 to £80 per child if paid within 21 days and from £120 to £160 if paid in 28 days. Additionally, these fines will be per parent of any child taken out of school during term time.
Where a further holiday is then taken within a three year period this will be charged at the higher rate of £160. Fines per parent will be capped at two fines for term time holidays within a three year period and for further holidays after that stage other actions will be considered such as prosecution.
Money raised via fines is only used by the local authority to cover the costs of administering the system, and to fund attendance support. Any extra money is returned to the government.
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