Attendance
Why is attendance so important?
Regular attendance at school will impact on your child’s academic progress-pupils need to attend school regularly to benefit from their education. Missing out on lessons leaves pupils vulnerable to falling behind. Pupils with poor attendance tend to achieve less in both primary and secondary school.
Research indicates that there is a direct link between poor attendance and poor achievement. Shavington Academy has a minimum target of 96% attendance for every child. A pupil who has only 90% attendance misses almost 4 weeks of school every year. That’s over 100 hours of learning lost. If young people do not attend school regularly, they will experience difficulty in keeping up with their studies. In addition, they also miss out on the many activities and opportunities that we offer at Shavington Academy that support the curriculum and nurture their growth into young adults. Pupils who do not attend school regularly are at a greater risk of becoming involved in crime or
becoming a victim of abuse.
Shavington Academy believes that regular school attendance is the key to enabling pupils to maximise the educational opportunities available to them and become emotionally resilient, confident and competent adults who are able to realise their full potential and make a positive contribution to their community.
A pupil’s attendance will directly affect their achievement in school. Evidence shows that a pupil’s progress and attainment is affected if their attendance falls below 90% and statistics show that if pupils miss just 17 days (34 sessions) of school, their GCSE attainment is likely to drop by an entire grade.
It is important that we help our young people to get into the good habits that they will need in the workplace. Excellent attendance and punctuality are essential in their future employment, and we regularly receive requests from potential employers for references regarding attendance and punctuality. Pupils who develop a poor pattern of attendance and punctuality will be monitored by the Attendance Team and you may be invited into school for a meeting.
As a parent/carer, you are legally responsible for ensuring that your child attends school regularly and is punctual. If you fail to ensure this, you are committing an offence under the Education Act (1996). Under the new guidelines coming into place on August 19th 2024 penalty notices will be issued to parents where they have failed to ensure that their child of compulsory school age, regularly attends school.
The threshold for the first penalty notice is 10 unauthorised absences in a rolling 10 school week period.
Should attendance continue to be an issue, a second penalty notice will be considered within a 3-year period following the first penalty being issued. If no improvement is made the case may proceed to parental prosecution which can include a fine of up to £2500 and/or a prison sentence.
