Attendance

School Hours

The school day for all year groups is between 8.50am-3.30pm.

The school gates are open from 8.40am for children to arrive on site. Classroom are open from 8:45am. Children should not be left unsupervised on the playground before the classroom are opened. Families are encouraged to be punctual in order to ensure a good start to the day.

The importance of good attendance and school procedures

At Central, we take attendance and punctuality very seriously as we want to give all of our children the best possible start in life and there is a close correlation between the amount of time children spend in school and the progress they make.

If your child is unwell, please telephone the school office to let us know. 

If your child has been physically sick or has diarrhea, you will need to keep your child at home for 48 hours just in case he/she has an infection that could spread to other children. If your child contracts an infectious disease, please let us know as soon as possible, in case we need to alert the Health Authorities.

If you should change your contact details, such as your address or telephone number, please inform the school immediately so that we are able to get in touch with you if there is an emergency. Similarly, if you start work or change your job please notify us of your up-to-date details, as we may need to contact you at any time.

If a child is collected from school during school hours, please see the Headteacher, or Admin team and sign them out before collecting the child.

If you are unable to collect your child yourself, please telephone the office to give permission for someone else to collect your child on your behalf. It is essential that children attend school regularly. We work closely with the Education Welfare Service to ensure good attendance. When a child is absent, we note a reason in the register and whether the absence is authorised or unauthorised.

Authorised absence is defined as follows:

• When a child is prevented from attending by sickness.
• Religious observance as defined by the religious body to which a child belongs.
• Situations where a school would reasonably exercise discretion to grant leave, e.g. death of a close member of a child’s family.

Absences that do not fall into the above categories are deemed unauthorised and these absences are closely monitored. If we do not receive a note or phone call, the absence is recorded as unauthorised. If a child’s absence gives cause for concern, we will in the first instance try to talk to you about this, however, a referral may be made to the Education Welfare Service.

We ask parents to avoid, where possible, medical and similar appointments during schools hours. We would also like to remind parents to avoid taking holidays during school time as this will not be authorised.

Frequent absence has a proven detrimental effect on progress and therefore we work closely with parents and outside agencies to keep these absences to an absolute minimum. Our registers are regularly inspected by the Education Welfare Officer, who will discuss any problems regarding attendance with those parents and carers concerned.

We want children to adopt good habits of attending punctually. It is disruptive to your child and to the rest of the class when children arrive late. Latecomers may miss important information and teaching. In addition, children are often upset about going into classes and assemblies when they are late as they feel embarrassed.

If lateness persists, parents are contacted and asked to meet to discuss the situation with the Headship Team and the Education Welfare Officer.

Having said all of the above, if your child is late please do not keep them off from school.

For further detail, see the Attendance policy in the Policies section of the website.

To make an authorised absence request, please download the form here and return to the school office. The local authority has provided the following document Helping Parents Understand Penalty Notice Fines with additional information.