Message about attendance
We are so glad to welcome students back and to see so many learners who are positive for the new school year. We have had an excellent teacher training session on LEAP (Listen, Empathise, Agree, Partner) conversations to support the improved attendance and punctuality focus for this year. You will be glad to know that the tutor teams for respective years will be conducting meetings with parents and students who initial concerns regarding attendance and punctuality issues, giving a personalised and first hand response to students who are within their tutor group. These will be face to face meetings which aim to understand the barriers to attendance and put in place support where necessary. Within this training useful links and support initiatives were shared so that we are able to offer professional support for specific areas of concern.
We will continue to hold our punctuality focus and the late detentions will remain in action for Wednesdays and Fridays. These will be time appropriate. In addition to this, those students who have need for additional support to improve positive behaviours of belonging, a programme will begin to support the more complex needs of our students and will be complimented by our school attendance meetings.
As I am sure you will be aware the government have released a new set of guidance to support the improved attendance levels for this year and we, at The John of Gaunt School are so happy that we are able to support our community in this clear vision to improve our young peoples outcomes.
For further reading on the new attendance guidance please see: https://www.johnofgauntschool.org/attachments/download.asp?file=1994&type=pdf The letter for Wiltshire council advising parents, that we sent out last term.
The summary of information is also on our website:
All of our students should aim to achieve 100% attendance each year to get the very best out of their school career.
Students should attend school each day on time.
The school day starts at 08:30am and tutor time begins at 08:35am.
The school day ends at 3:00pm.
Excellent attendance is considered between 100% and 98% where students have had less than four days off across the year for unavoidable circumstances such as medical reasons.
Good attendance sits between 95% and 97.9%
This is where there have been instances of absence which are irregular.
Initial concerns for absence are when a student has 5% absence to 9% absence and this can equate to up to 50 lessons missed of learning.
At 10% absence, a child is considered persistently absent, and it is likely, if no medical evidence supports the absence, that the local authority will be contacted. This level of absence is severely detrimental to learner’s outcomes. Those who are persistently absent miss 19 days of learning across the school year.
We have also updated our website to include helpful advise and links to services if any children are concerned about school. In addition to this our dedicated pastoral team are on hand in school to ensure that students are able to discuss issues arise.
https://www.johnofgauntschool.org/parents-and-carers/attendance
We, in the attendance team, are sure that this years attendance and punctuality will continue to improve so as to support the holistic and academic outcomes of all of our young people.
