Attendance

By Law all children, at Stretford High School, of compulsory school age (11-16) must be a full-time education. As a parent, you are committing an offence if you fail to ensure that your child attends school regularly, even if they are missing school without your knowledge.

If your child fails to attend school regularly you run the risk of being issued with a penalty fine and/or being prosecuted.

What to do:

If your child is ill
If you have a family crisis
If you have a medical appointment
In unforeseen circumstances
If your child is late

For any of the above circumstances you must contact school prior to 8.30am on the day of absence. This should be done EVERY DAY your child is absent.

To report your child’s absence, telephone school on 0161 876 1850, option 2.

If you have not contacted school a representative from school may call at your home. This will be a member of the staff from school and/or the Education Welfare Officer. If school is still unable to contact you after a home visit the Police maybe contacted to complete a welfare check.

Attendance for all students will be monitored by the Attendance Officer and Head of Year. If there are any concerns about your child’s attendance you will be invited to attend a family support meeting.

Punctuality

School registration is at 8.30 a.m. and lessons start at 8.45 a.m.

Any Student that arrives after 8.30 a.m. must sign the late register, giving reason for the lateness. Students who are late will receive a detention that day after school. Parents will be notified by text message. Persistent lateness will be followed up by the Attendance Office and parents may be invited into school for a meeting. Arrival after 9.00am is recorded as an unauthorised absence.

Medical Appointments

All medical appointments are to be taken after the school day. School finishes at 2.10pm on Mondays and 2.55pm on Tuesdays to Fridays, allowing for any medical appointments.

If your child has an urgent medical appointment or a hospital appointment:

Parents are to notify school giving as much notice as possible of the appointment. Evidence must be provided for the appointment otherwise the absence will be recorded as unauthorised.

On the day of the appointment:

Parents must provide a written note to advise what time their child will need to leave the classroom. Students are to show this note to the class teacher at the start of the lesson and to Student Services when signing out.
Students are to wait at Student Services until parents arrive in reception.
Students will not be allowed to leave school until parents arrive. If a Student is making their own way to an appointment Student Services are to contact parents to confirm that the student is able to make their own way to the appointment and confirm the time that they are leaving school. Student will be not be allowed to leave school until we have spoken to a parent.
Students to complete signing out sheet. An appointment slip will then be completed by Student Services, given to the student who must hand this into reception to allow them to leave school.

Emergency Appointments on the day:

Parents to contact school as soon as possible. Evidence must be provided of the appointment otherwise the absence will be recorded as unauthorised
Student Service will email the class teacher to advise that the student needs to sign out giving the time that parents have stated.
If parents arrive in reception and the student has not left the lesson, a member of staff, where possible, will collect the student from lesson as soon as they possibly can.

Leave Requests for Religious Observance

As a multicultural school we aim to support all our students who wish to take leave from school for religious observance, with a maximum of 2 days per academic year. All requests must be put in writing giving advanced notice. If a student is absent and leave has not been requested, the absence will be marked as unauthorised in the register.

Student Request for Leave of Absence During Term Time

From the 1^st September 2013, the new law gives no entitlement to parents to take their child on holiday in term time. Any application for leave must be in exceptional circumstances and the Headteacher must be satisfied that the circumstances are exceptional and warrant the granting of leave. Any leave that is taken, which has not been granted, will be followed up by the Educational Welfare Officer and may result in a fine.

Parents are therefore asked to note the following:

There is no entitlement for parents to remove their child from school for the purposes of a holiday in term time.
In exceptional circumstances parents can request to remove their child.
All such requests must be made on the school’s official “Student Request for Leave of Absence Form”, which are available to download from our website or from reception – letters will not be accepted.
The “exceptional circumstances” must be clearly stated on the form.
The form must be returned to the school office at least fourteen days before first day of the requested leave of absence. Forms submitted after this date will not be accepted.
Parents should not assume that returning the form guarantees that the request will be approved.
Requests will need to be made in writing in respect of religious observance days giving at least 14 days’ notice.

The Headteacher has the authority to decide whether or not to authorise the absence. In making a decision the Headteacher will take the following into account:

The reasons given for the exceptional circumstance
The time of the year and/or term and the child’s previous attendance record – including any patterns of absences
Whether the child will miss any preparations for/or any tests/exams
The Headteacher will inform parents of the reason/s for a request being refused.
If a child is removed without approval, the absence will be marked as “unauthorised” in the class register. This absence may be investigated by Trafford LA and a fine issued where necessary, usually after 5 days of unauthorised absence.
If a child is removed without approval and the absence exceeds 20 school days, your child may be removed from the Stretford High School’s roll.
A child who is removed for a prolonged period in term time (that is – longer than a normal absence for sickness) will miss a large amount of school work while he or she is away and will be unprepared for the work on returning to school.