Attendance
Good attendance and punctuality are something we promote highly at Canvey Junior School. The values which this ethos instils become habit forming, ensuring that children grow up with the correct attitude in their future lives, both at school and in their work. We monitor our children's attendance closely. Each week's class attendance is recorded and the highest achieving class in both upper and lower school are published in our fortnightly newsletter, which is sent home to parents and carers.
In order that your children gain the maximum benefit from their school, it is vital they attend regularly. Of course, there will be times when your child is unwell and unable to attend school, and these absences will be authorised, providing we are informed of your child’s illness as early as possible. By law we are able to authorise absences for the following:
- Acceptable medical reason or unavoidable cause.
- Religious Observances
- An absence for which prior permission has been given.
- Other absences will be marked as unauthorised.
If your child is unable to attend school:
- Inform the school on the first day of absence, stating the reason and if possible, give the expected date of return.
- Keep the school informed if the absence is to be longer than expected.
- Send a note with the child when they return giving full details of the reason for absence
At Canvey Junior School we work closely with the Attendance Compliance Team, who attends the school regularly to check on all pupil attendance. The percentage of authorised and unauthorised absences that your child has each year is recorded on their school report. This is a legal requirement.
If you need to take your child out of school for any reason during the school day, you will need to report to the school office, where our Attendance Officer, Mrs Reed, will be able to assist you. This is in the interests of the health, safety and well-being of all our children.
Attendance Targets
Our attendance target for the academic year, September 2023 – July 2024, is 96%.
Holidays in term time
Any absence from school can be very disruptive to a child’s education, and they may miss out on work which they find impossible to catch up on. A two week holiday in term time would mean that your child misses 50 hours of education. If this pattern is repeated every year of your child’s junior school life, this amounts to 8 weeks. This is the equivalent of your child missing an entire half term of learning.
Here at Canvey Junior School we have an agreed policy with Canvey Infants School where requests for holiday in term time, will be unauthorised, unless exceptional circumstances apply.
If you do feel it is appropriate to take your child on holiday during term time, all requests must be made in advance, using a ‘leave of absence’ form which can be collected from the school office or downloaded from our website.
The current law does not give any entitlement to parents to take their child out of school during term time. The Education (Pupil Registration) (England) (Amendment) Regulations 2013 prohibits Head Teachers granting leave of absence to a pupil except where an application has been made in advance and the Head Teacher considers that there are exceptional circumstances relating to the application
I must warn you that, if you do take your child out of school for this time, the absences will not be authorised and the Education Welfare Service may issue a penalty notice to each parent of £80 for each child to be paid within 21 days. If the penalty is not paid within the time scale the penalty will increase to £160. If the higher penalty is not paid within 28 days, the Education Welfare Service will then institute legal proceedings against you in the magistrate’s court under Section 444 of the Education Act 1996 for failing to ensure your child attends school regularly.