Important Attendance & Absence information for September

As the year is coming to an end, we would like to share with parents/carers and students these important reminders:

ATTENDANCE PROCEDURES

Here at Fairfield, we encourage our students to be aspirational individuals, this forms a part of our core values. Good attendance at school is key to attainment and therefore enables students to achieve at their highest possible level.

Please be reminded of the new start to the school day being at 8.40. The cut off for the morning registration mark will now be 9.10. Students arriving after 9.10 due to lateness will be unauthorised

REPORTING ABSENCE

Illness

Our preferred method of reporting your child’s absence is via ParentMail on each morning of illness. Alternatively, you can telephone the student absence line on 0117 952 7101. You must include full details of the illness, for example symptoms, for the absence to be authorised.

Medical

Please try to make medical appointments outside of school hours. If this is not possible, only remove your child from school for the minimum amount of time necessary for the appointment.

Please be reminded that from September 2024, the ‘Working together to improve school attendance’ guidance came into practice. This saw a national framework for the consideration of issuing Fixed Penalty Notice.

The threshold for consideration is 10 sessions of unauthorised absence in a rolling period of 10 school weeks. A school week means any week in which there is at least one school session. This can be met with any combination of unauthorised absence (e.g. 4 sessions of holiday taken in term time plus 6 sessions of arriving late after the register closes all within 10 school weeks). These sessions can be consecutive (e.g. 10 sessions of holiday in one week) or not (e.g. 6 sessions of unauthorised absence taken in 1 week and 1 per week for the next 4 weeks). The period of 10 school weeks can also span different terms or school years (e.g. 2 sessions of unauthorised absence in the Summer Term and a further 8 within the Autumn Term).

Please ensure that students arrive on time to school each day and that school is contacted via Parentmail or the absence line if students will be absent.

Thank you for your support.