St Anthony's Drive, Leeds, West Yorkshire LS11 8AB

0113 2716 963

info@HG-PS.org

Hugh Gaitskell Primary School

One world, one school

 

Attendance

Arriving late to school

The school gates open at 8:40 am. The school day starts promptly at 8:50 am.

If your child arrives late to school, he/she will miss the vital part of the teacher’s instructions for the lesson/day along with the embarrassment of entering the classroom late.

As you can see in the table, a few minutes have a huge impact on your child’s loss of learning and on the progress which they make. Lateness also affects the whole class with the disruption of the teacher's input to the lesson. The table indicates the impact of lost learning for pupils which are frequently/consistently late to school. This will put your child at a disadvantage.


What the attendance percentage means

Look at the table below to see the impact absences have on your child’s attendance across an academic year.

 

You can easily see the impact of your child not attending school on a daily basis.

 

 

What should I do if my child is absent from school?

Contact the school office on the first morning before school starts to let us know why your child is not able to attend school. 

Telephone: 0113 2716963

Email: info@hg-ps.org 

School will phone on day 1 of an absence and do a home visit if we have not made contact with a family member.

 

Emergency Medical Appointments During School Hours

If your child has an emergency medical/dental appointment or a hospital appointment during school time, please could parents/carers note the following:

  • Inform the school office of the appointment as soon as possible. You will need to show proof of the appointment.
  • On the morning of the appointment, send a text message/email to the school to let the teacher know what time you need your child to be ready for collection.

Routine check-ups should be made outside of school hours.

 

Punctuality

It is very important that all children arrive on time. If your child arrives late, they will not be able to come into school via usual morning entrance doors but should instead come to the main school gate. We will then be able to mark registers and ensure your child is marked for a school dinner.

Please note that if a child arrives at school late we are required to mark them as absent for that half day session.

 

Attendance Matters - Working together

Regular attendance impacts on children’s achievement, their inclusion in friendship groups and general confidence and therefore it is important that pupils attend school every day.

Punctuality is also very important as children who arrive late on a regular basis, miss key learning in phonics, English & maths lessons.

We believe that working together with parents is the best way to result in positive attendance outcomes for our children.

Although we expect our children to achieve the 95% target set for attendance by the Local Authority at the very least, we do have a number of strategies to encourage and motivate children to want to be here

all the time. We celebrate great attendance every week, present children with certificates every half term, praise them regularly and give prizes to every child who attends 100% of the year.

Our pastoral team staff are happy to work with both children and families to improve attendance and punctuality.

Come and talk to us if you are having problems.

 

Attendance Monitoring

As attendance and punctuality is so important to us, we will take action where there are instances of unacceptable, low pupil attendance, or if pupils are regularly late to school. This includes: members of staff carrying out home visits, arranging meetings to discuss attendance issues and making referrals to Leeds City Council (Area Attendance Officer)