Attendance Statement
Attendance – New School Year: Importance of attendance and the attendance process - Joint Dorset County Letter
The Prince of Wales School is committed to ensuring our pupils achieve the best possible outcomes and good school attendance is key to achieving this aim. We will work hard to provide a safe and welcoming environment for your child and will monitor attendance closely.
Good school attendance improves your child’s chances of success in life. There is clear evidence of the link between good attendance at school and high levels of achievement. Children with no absence at Key Stage 4 are almost two times more likely to achieve 5 or more GCSEs than children who missed 10-15 percent of lessons.
If your child has an attendance level of 90%, they will have missed one day a fortnight in school. Over a school year this will represent four weeks of absence. If this level of absence were maintained for a five-year period it would mean half a school year would have been missed.
We would really appreciate your help in ensuring that your child has good school attendance.
Our school procedures require you to report your child’s absence daily. To do so, please call the school office and leave a message as soon as possible on the day of absence by 9am. Please let the school know in advance of any planned absences, including for example hospital appointments. Where possible, please make medical and dental appointments out of school hours.
If there is a concern, we will write to you and talk with you so that we can work together to identify any barriers that may be preventing your child from attending school and ensure support is put in place. We may also contact the Inclusion Team at Dorset Council for advice and support or other organisations that may be able to help. It is hoped that this will be successful in improving attendance.
Where support has failed to address attendance issues, we will contact you again to invite you to a meeting where we can identify the reasons why attendance has not improved and change or adjust the intervention where appropriate.
Here at The Prince of Wales School, we are determined to ensure that all our students have the opportunity to achieve success and have an excellent record of attendance. If following additional support attendance does not improve sufficiently, you will be invited to meet with the school and an Inclusion Lead from Dorset Council at an Inclusion Panel. Other professionals may also be invited where appropriate. This meeting is an opportunity to meet and discuss why your child has a high absence rate and seek solutions to any problems.
The Inclusion Panel can recommend several outcomes, which can include a further period of close monitoring with specified targets for attendance; issuing a £60 Penalty Notice, a Parenting Order or seeking prosecution which could result in a fine of up to £2,500.
It is hoped that such measures will not be needed and that your child will have a good record of attendance, is happy and achieves the best possible outcomes.
Thank you for your continued support.
Yours faithfully,
Mr. Gary Spracklen
Headteacher - The Prince of Wales School
T: (+44)1305 257120 E: headteacher@princeofwales.dorset.sch.uk T: @Nelkcarps