Attendance

St. Aidan's CofE Academy and Northern Lights Learning Trust are committed to meeting our obligation with regards to school attendance through our whole-school culture and ethos. We fully believe that good attendance is central to raising standards in education and ensuring all pupils can fulfil their potential. Pupils need to attend school regularly to benefit from their education. Missing out on lessons leaves children vulnerable to falling behind. Children with poor attendance tend to achieve less in both Primary and Secondary school. For these reasons, the Trust will proactively work in partnership with all parents/carers to promote and secure good attendance and overcome any barriers through proactive, strong partnership working.

Our school attendance policy can be found here:

Attendance_Policy

Mrs Holden is our attendance champion and is available to support you with any attendance related issues you may have.

Registers will be taken at 8.40am and any child arriving after this time will be marked as late.

Registration closes across all Northern Lights Academy schools 30 minutes after the start of the school day. For St. Aidan's, this will be 9.10am. Any pupil arriving after the close of
registration will be marked as a U code – (unauthorised).

Aims

As a Trust, we aim to:

• Promote good attendance
• Reduce absence, including persistent and severe absence
• Ensure every pupil has access to full-time education, which they are entitled to
• Act early to address patterns of absence
• Ensure all pupils are punctual to lessons
• Build strong relationships with families and ensure support is given if needed

Attendance is categorised below:

attendance st aidans 20242025 4 .pdf

 Each half term, we will communicate attendance to parents, letting them know which category their child falls into.

Proactive Approach

As part of the Culture of school we encourage strong partnerships between home and school. As part of our staged approach we will liaise with parents/carers before day 5 of an absence in your proactive approach to support.

tfxhqx staged approach 1.pdf

 

Planned Absence 

Attending a medical or dental appointment will be counted as authorised as long as the pupil’s parent/carer notifies the school in advance of the appointment.
We ask parents/carers to notify school in advance of the appointment by telephone or informing the main school office in person. Parents/carers must bring copies of appointment cards where possible.
However, we encourage parents/carers to make medical and dental appointments out of school hours where possible. Where this is not possible, the pupil should be out of school for the minimum amount of time necessary.

 

Authorised AND Unauthorised Absence

Exceptional Circumstances 
The Head of School will only grant other leave of absence to a pupil during term time if they consider there to be ‘exceptional circumstances’. It is important to note that Changes have been made to the Attendance regulations in the Education (Pupil Registration) (England) (Amendment) Regulations. These changes make it clear that Headteachers/Head of School may not grant any other leave of absence during term-time unless there are exceptional circumstances.

A leave of absence is granted at the Head of School discretion, including the length of time the pupil is authorised to be absent for. Each application will be considered individually taking into account the specific facts and circumstances and relevant background context behind the request.

Northern Lights Learning Trust define ‘exceptional circumstances’ as ‘unusual’ or ‘rare’ and each request will be considered individually, taking in to account the specific facts, circumstances and context behind the request.

Exceptional Circumstances could include:

1. Service personnel returning from a tour of duty abroad where it is evidenced the individual will not be in receipt of any leave in the near future that coincides with school holidays.
2. Where an absence from school is recommended by a health professional as part of a parent or child’s rehabilitation from a medical or emotional issue
3. When a family needs to spend time together to support each other during a terminal illness or death of a family member (compassionate grounds).
   Evidence would be required.

Circumstances that are NOT considered exceptional include:

1. Parents’ employment restrictions
2. Visiting family and friends who have different school holidays
3. Availability of cheap holidays and cheap travel arrangements
4. Celebrations of birthdays etc.

Any request should be submitted as soon as it is anticipated and, where possible, at least 2 weeks before the absence, and in accordance with any leave of absence request form.

PLEASE NOTE: Head of School may require evidence to support any request for leave of absence.

The absence request will then be processed and a decision letter will be sent out. Any absence, which has not been agreed in advance by the Headteacher/Head of School, is marked as unauthorised absence.

Legal Sanctions

Northern Lights Learning Trust are committed to supporting all our families in overcoming any barriers to attendance. Where this is not successful, or is not engaged with, and/or are not appropriate (e.g. an unauthorised holiday in term time) the individual school or local authority can fine parents/carers via a penalty notice for the unauthorised absence of their child from school, where the child is of compulsory school age. The law protects pupils’ right to education and provides a range of legal interventions to formalise attendance improvement.

A penalty notice can be issued to parents/carers as an alternative to prosecution where they have failed to ensure that their child of compulsory school age regularly attends school or, in certain cases, at a place where alternative provision is provided. A penalty notice can be issued to each parent/carer liable for the offence or offences.

At Northern Lights we fully understand that Penalty notices must be issued in line with the Education (Penalty Notices) (England) Regulations 2007, as amended and can only be issued by a headteacher or someone authorised by them, a local authority officer or the police. They must also be issued in line with Local Codes of Conduct which are drawn up and maintained by each local authority.

• The first penalty notice issued to a parent in respect of a particular pupil will be charged at £160 if paid within 28 days. This will be reduced to £80 if paid within 21 days.
• A second penalty notice issued to the same parent in respect of the same pupil is charged at a flat rate of £160 if paid within 28 days.

Important Legal Information – New from 19th August 2024
The Government has introduced a single National threshold for when a penalty notice must be considered by all schools in England. This threshold is 10 sessions (usually equivalent to 5 school days) of
unauthorised absence within a rolling 10 week period. These sessions do not have to be consecutive and
can be made up of a combination of any type of unauthorised absence. The period of 10 school weeks can span different terms or school years.

Darlington Borough Council Attendance Policy

Parents are legally responsible for making sure that their child attends school. If a child fails to attend school without acceptable reason parents risk getting a penalty notice or being prosecuted.

Arranging appointments and outings after school hours, at weekends or during school holidays will help to prevent disruption to a pupil’s education and to the school.  Parents should not expect their child’s school to agree to their child going on holiday during term time and if parents do take them out of school this too may result in a penalty notice.

Amendments have been made to the 2006 regulations in the Education (Pupil Registration)(England)(Amendment) Regulations 2013 [external link] with effect from 1 September 2013.

The amendments make clear that headteachers may not grant any leave of absence during term time unless there are exceptional circumstances. Headteachers should determine the number of school days a child can be away from school if the leave is granted, in these exceptional circumstances.

Further information can be found by following the link: https://www.darlington.gov.uk/education-and-learning/school-years/support-for-parents-and-pupils/attendance/