Dear parents and carers,
Over the summer break, the Department of Education's (DfE’s) statutory guidance on working together to improve school attendance (applies from 19 August 2024) came into effect.
In the most part, this will not change how we monitor attendance at our school, however, there are significant changes to the use of penalty notices (fines), which can and will be issued by the local authority to parents of children of statutory school age.
Penalty Charge Notices (fines)
Penalty charge notices can be issued for 10 sessions (5 days) of unauthorised school absence over 10 weeks. If you receive the notice, you must pay:
- £80, if it’s paid within 21 days (per parent per child)
- £160, if it’s paid after 21 days but within 28 days (per parent per child)
If payment is not made within 28 days, the local authority may decide to pursue further legal action.
I have attached an overview of the penalty notices information.
/docs/Attendance/Leaflets_for_parents_-_New_Guidance_2024_Penalty_Fines.pdf
Punctuality (lateness at the beginning and end of the day)
Beginning of the day
It is important that children arrive at school on time to have a smooth start to their day. The nursery gate opens at 8.45am and all children are expected to be there and the register will be taken straight away.
The gates for Reception to Year 6 open at 8.50am and it is expected that all children come in straight away and are in class ready for the register at 9am. Gates will close at 8.58am. We will be reducing this window once the start of term has settled to 8.55am.
We have now changed our signing in process for late children for September. If a child arrives to school after the gates have closed, their adult needs to bring them to the main office where they will need to complete a late slip where the adult will need to record the child's name, class and reason for lateness. It is not acceptable to 'drop' late children at the gate.
Arriving promptly makes sure that your child doesn’t miss schoolwork, and prevents disruption to the teacher and other pupils. Persistent lateness can lead to a significant loss in learning time. Persistent lateness can also result in a penalty notice, if your child arrives late after the register closes in 10 sessions in a rolling period of 10 weeks.
End of the school day
School finishes at 11.45am for nursery, 3.15pm for Reception and 3.20pm for Year 1 - 6. It is expected that Nursery have been collected by 11.50am, Reception by 3.20pm and Year 1-6 by 3.25pm. The gates will be closed as soon after 3.25pm as possible. After this time, any children who have not been collected will be taken to the school office.
We have now changed our signing out process for late children for September. If a child is collected late, the adult collecting will be required to complete a late slip logging time of collection and reason for late collection.
Year group leaders and Senior Leaders will be reviewing the late slips each week and inviting parents in to discuss any ongoing concerns if needed.
If you are sending someone different to collect your child from school, please ensure that you have informed them of the correct time and that you have informed the school so that we know that we can release your child.
Please be mindful that at the start of term dismissal can take a little longer as staff check contact lists and get to know new parents. This is to ensure that we are only releasing your child to someone with permission to collect them. For the first few days we will start dismissal a little earlier to take this into account.
Updated attendance policy
You can also find an updated attendance policy on our website at https://www.delucyprimaryschool.co.uk/Parents/Attendance/
Yours Sincerely
Mrs Lodge
Headteacher
Noticeboard
