Attendance
All children have the right to education, based on equality of opportunity, and Whitchurch Primary School, in partnership with parents and other parties, must take measures to encourage regular school attendance and reduce rates of absenteeism.
A child’s success at school is likely to be affected negatively if their attendance is poor. Those who do not attend regularly may fall behind in their learning, leading to underachievement, both academically and socially.
Whitchurch Primary School recognises the crucial role that parents play in promoting good school attendance. The school therefore seeks to provide professional, quality information and advice, communicated frequently by telephone, email, leaflets, parents’ evenings, school reports and via the school attendance webpage on our school website.
Whitchurch Primary School aims to:
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Give attendance and punctuality a high priority;
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Clearly define roles and responsibilities to ensure consistency and accuracy;
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Provide support, advice and guidance to families;
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Use attendance data systematically to evaluate success and to prioritise appropriate follow-up procedures;
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Use rewards to celebrate good attendance;
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Use sanctions sensitively and only when necessary;
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Work in partnership with the Education Welfare Service to improve attendance; and
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Support pupils returning to school after significant periods of absence.
Pupils at Whitchurch Primary are dedicated to their learning and are happy in school life. This is reflected in the school’s enviable attendance rate, which was 96.3% for academic year 2018/2019. (The target for Cardiff schools is 95%). In addition, 39.5% of our pupils achieved 100% attendance over the Summer term 2019, and 8.7% of pupils achieved 100% for the whole of the academic year.
Our target attendance is 96%. The graph below shows weekly attendance at our school over the Summer Term 2019.
The graphs below show our comparative attendance over Autumn, Spring and Summer Terms.
This chart is a checklist of the national guidelines on how long a child should remain absent from school when suffering from the ailments listed. Parental discretion should of course be used for conditions where no recommended period of absence is given (eg: tonsillitis).
Attendance Letters and Information
Did you know?
- 5 minutes late every day means around 3 ½ days of education are missed
- a score of 90% in a test would be a good result but 90% attendance means that a child will have missed around 100 lessons over a school year.
|
Attendance during one school year |
equals this number of days absent |
which is approximately this many weeks absent |
which means this number of lessons missed |
|
95% |
9 days |
2 weeks |
50 lessons |
|
90% |
19 days |
4 weeks |
100 lessons |
|
85% |
29 days |
6 weeks |
150 lessons |
|
80% |
38 days |
8 weeks |
200 lessons |
Click below to download a copy of our attendance policy :
Click below to download a brief guide to Fixed Penalty Notices :
Please do not hesitate to contact us if you would like to
discuss your child’s attendance.