Attendance

Key Attendance Contacts

Mrs Wendy Wing is the Attendance Lead responsible for the strategic approach to attendance in our school.

Mrs Andrea Charalambous is our Pastoral Lead and Mrs Hannah Bedwell is our SENCO.

The school staff member parents should contact about attendance on a day-to-day basis is Mrs Kia Papageorgiou, who is our Attendance Officer.

All members of staff can be contacted by emailing: admin@cuffley.herts.sch.uk or calling on 01707 888100.

School Attendance and the Law

The Department for Education (DfE) has produced statutory guidance for maintained schools, academies, independent schools, and local authorities. It is called “Working Together to Improve School Attendance” and it includes a National Framework in relation to absence and the use of legal sanctions. Our School Attendance Policy reflects the requirements and principles of that guidance.

The School Attendance (Pupil Registration) (England) Regulations 2024 introduced a National Framework in England. By law, all children of compulsory school age must receive an appropriate full-time education (Education Act 1996). Parents/Carers have a legal duty to ensure their child attends school regularly at the school at which they are registered.

Parents/Carers may be recognised differently under education law, than under family law. Section 576 of the Education Act 1996 states that a ‘parent’, in relation to a child or young person, includes any person who is not a parent (from which can be inferred ‘biological parent’) but who has parental responsibility, or who has care of the child.

A person typically has care of a child or young person if they are the person with whom the child lives, either full or part-time, and who looks after the child, irrespective of what their biological or legal relationship is with the child.

School Absence Procedures

Absence Procedures

If a child is unable to attend school for any reason, parents/carers should notify the school office by:

our preferred method, the Arbor app (ensuring that a detailed reason is given)
telephoning the school office on 01707 888100
emailing the school office on admin@cuffley.herts.sch.uk
popping into the school office and advising the receptionist

If a child is absent from school a parent/carer must follow these procedures:

Contact the school on the first day of absence before 8:45am when our registers close
If you are unable to log your child’s absence via the Arbor app, the school has an answerphone available to leave a message, if nobody is available to take your call. You may call into school personally and speak to the office staff.
Contact the school on every further day of absence, again before 8:45am
Ensure that your child returns to school as soon as possible. When determining whether a child is too ill to attend school, both parents and school staff can consider the advice contained within the NHS Guidance on School Absence and Childhood Illness.

If your child is absent, we will:

Telephone or text you on the first, and every subsequent day of absence, if we have not heard from you. This is a safeguarding duty.
If we are unable to make contact with parents/carers by telephone, we will telephone emergency contact numbers, send letters home and a home visit may be made, to ensure that our safeguarding duties are followed.
The Local Authority will be informed if no contact has been made with parent/carers by the 10^th day of absence (or sooner if deemed appropriate) as The School Attendance (Pupil Registration) (England) Regulations 2024 Section 13 requires schools to inform the local authority of any pupils absent from school and where absences amount to more than 10 or more days, either consecutively or irregularly and have been unauthorised. This means school will have unauthorised 20 am/pm sessions of absences. Schools are also under a safeguarding duty, under section 175 of the Education Act 2002 to investigate any unexplained/unauthorised absences. At this point your child will be considered to be “absent from education”.

If absence continues, we will:

Write to you if your child’s attendance is below 95%/causing and/or where punctuality is a concern.
Arrange a meeting so that you may discuss the situation.
Consider and offer reasonable adjustments.
Offer a Families First Assessment to ensure appropriate support is considered.
Create a personalised robust support plan, such as an attendance contract, to address any barriers to attendance and make clear each person’s role in improving the attendance patterns of your child.
Offer signposting support to other agencies or services, if appropriate.
Seek advice, guidance and support from the Local Authority Statutory Attendance Support Team and consider appropriate legal sanctions, if attendance deteriorates following the above actions.

Punctuality and Lateness

Good timekeeping is a vital life skill which will help children as they progress through their school life and out into the wider world.

Pupils who arrive late disrupt lessons and, if a child misses the start of the day, they can feel unsettled and embarrassed and risk missing vital work and important messages from their class teacher. The times of the start and close of the school day for pupils at Cuffley School are:

Classroom Doors Open: 8.35am
Doors Close and Registration: 8.45am
End of the school day: 3.15pm
Registration - How we manage lateness:

The school doors are opened at 8:35am for a 'soft start' and pupils are expected to enter the school building and make their way to their classroom.
Doors are closed at 8:45am and registers are taken.
Pupils who arrive between 8.45am and 8.55am will be marked as ‘late’ but counted as present for that session (Code L).
Registers close at 8.55am. If a pupil does not arrive before the register is closed, he/she will be marked as “absent”.
Children who arrive after 8.55 am must be signed in via the main office for purposes of emergency evacuation etc.
Pupils who arrive after the register has closed at 8:55am and a parent provides a satisfactory explanation will be marked as ‘authorised absent’ for that session.
Pupils who arrive after the register has closed and parents fail to provide a satisfactory explanation will be marked as ‘unauthorised absent’ for that session (Code U).
If your child has a persistent lateness record, you may be contacted to draw this to your attention; in some cases you may be asked to meet with a senior leader, but you can approach us at any time if you are having difficulties getting your child to school on time. We expect parents and staff to encourage good punctuality by being good role models to our children and, as a school, we celebrate good class and individual punctuality. Unauthorised lateness could result in the school seeking advice and guidance from the Local Authority.

Attendance Policy October 2024