Attendance

At Meols Cop High School we recognise that to truly Broker Aspirations, students’ attendance has to be excellent. Ensuring your regular attendance at school is the legal responsibility of your parents/carer and students are expected to attend every day and aspire to 100% attendance. The school works closely with students and their parents to support them in achieving this goal. The Pastoral team will monitor attendance and implement appropriate strategies to improve attendance. This will also include home visits.

Due to the change in absence regulations, the Head teacher no longer has the authority to approve term time holiday requests. Only in exceptional circumstances will a leave of absence will be granted for students. Approval will be based upon the reason for the request, the stage at which the student is in their school career and absence record for current and previous school years.

Any parent wishing to make a request for leave of absence must complete the Leave of Absence Request form (available from the main office at school) and submit to their child’s Progress Leader.

Communication between home and school – daily procedures

If your child is unable to attend school your parent/carer will need to report student absence via the attendance module on Class Charts.

Understanding Types of Absences

Every half day absence has to be classified by the school as either authorised or unauthorised. Information about the cause of any absence is always required from your parents/carers, preferably in writing.

Authorised

Authorised absences are mornings or afternoons away from school for a good reason such as illness, medical/ dental appointments which unavoidably fall in school time, or emergencies.

Unauthorised

Unauthorised absences are those which the school does not consider reasonable. This type of absence can lead to the Local Authority using sanctions and/or legal proceedings. This includes:

• Parents/carers keeping pupils off unnecessarily.
• Truancy before or during the school day.
• Absences which have never been properly explained.
• Shopping, looking after other children or birthdays.
• Day trips and holidays in term time.
• Oversleeping.
• Absence to look after a sibling who is unwell.
• Confusion over term dates.

Any problems with regular attendance are best sorted out between school, parent/carer and the student.  If your child is reluctant to attend parent/carers must contact school immediately to discuss.

Medical Evidence

The school reserves the right to insist on medical evidence in order to code any absence as authorised or unauthorised and this decision will be made on an individual basis depending on your current and historic attendance.

Punctuality

If your child is late to school twice in one week without good reason, you will be required to complete a late detention with your pastoral leader.

ATTENDANCE MATTERS!!