Attendance

Regular school attendance plays an important part in helping your child grow up to become a reliable and responsible person. There are now clear links between regular school attendance and children’s attainment in later life.

365 Days in the year	Only 190 of these are days!	Absence from school
100% Attendance	190 days in school	0 days
95% Attendance	180 days in school	Up to 2 weeks
90% Attendance	171 days in school	Up to 4 weeks
85% Attendance	161 days in school	Up to 6 weeks
80% Attendance	152 days in school	More than 1/2 a term
75% Attendance	143 days in school	9 weeks and more

Here at The Willows School we aim for every child to achieve at least 95% attendance.

Our whole school attendance target is to achieve 95% or above.

Punctuality

Getting to school on time is part of learning to become a responsible and reliable person.

Our school day begins at 8:50am
If you are running late please call the school office on - 020 8841 7176
On arrival at school, please report to the school office so that your child can be appropriately marked in the register

10 Top Tips

Get your school clothes ready the night before
Pack your school bag and homework the night before
Don’t go to bed late
Set alarm clock 5 minutes earlier
Enjoy your breakfast - Don’t watch TV
Get washed and dressed
Leave for school at the same time each morning (set yourself a target time to leave the house and reward yourself for being on time!)
Arrange to walk to school with a friend or to meet your friends in the playground for a catch up before school

It is no coincidence that higher attendance leads to higher academic achievement and the Department for Education expect that each pupil should achieve at least 95% school attendance.

When we have concerns regarding individual pupil attendance we will be contacting parents/carers and this will be an opportunity for you to discuss your child’s school attendance and where appropriate punctuality. From this point we may take the following steps to improve your child’s school attendance/punctuality:

place your child’s school attendance on a four week monitoring period with a view to seeing an improvement
contact your child’s GP, with your consent, to establish if your child has medical needs which may prevent them from attending school
with your consent, make a referral to the school nursing team, to put in place a care plan to help establish good patterns of school attendance/punctuality
where we feel, we have exhausted all supportive options, we will look to refer your child’s school attendance to the Local Authority with a view to securing a fine or prosecution in the Magistrate’s Court.