Attendance Policy

Our aim is to encourage full attendance at Phoenix Park Academy. We do this by making education enjoyable, interesting and appropriate to every child’s needs. We encourage, praise and reward success.

We also carry out the following procedures to actively encourage good attendance:

• If a pupil does not attend school, and we have not received an explanation from their parent/guardian, we will contact the parent/guardian on the first day of absence by telephone.
• Daily phone calls will be made to the parents/guardians of an absent pupil by 09:30.
• Should any pupil abscond, a phone call home will be made immediately.
• We meet regularly with the Education Welfare Service (EWS) to discuss each pupil’s attendance.
• For all pupils we will contact the EWS if there are periods of unexplained absence.
• We will make referrals to the EWS and ask that they carry out a home visit to speak to parents and explain the importance of attendance.
• If attendance becomes a matter of concern we will carry out School Attendance Panels (SAPs). Should attendance not improve we will consider a more formal route which may result in fines or court appearances for the parents/guardians of poor attendees.
• Should a pupils be absent for 20 sessions over a 14 week period we will issue a Penalty Notice Warning letter. This states that a pupil must have 100% attendance over a 15 day period. Should he/she miss a session (AM or PM mark) they will be issued with a £60 fine.
• Parents/guardians will also be informed of attendance via the pupil log which is issued at the end of each week.
• Parents/guardians will also be informed of attendance via the pupil log which is issued at the end of each week.

N. Leach – Attendance Lead

September 2016