Attendance
Good attendance and punctuality at school is vital. Here at RPS we wish to maximise the opportunities for children to learn, grow, develop and create lasting friendships with other children. We promote excellent attendance to ensure that all pupils benefit academically and socially from their time with us. We want all children to have an attendance of 96% or above. We also seek to reduce the number of authorised and unauthorised absences to meet Government targets. To see the impact of attendance on a child’s progress during their time at school, see the Good Attendance Leaflet below.
The school works closely with the Attendance Legal Panel and are obliged to refer parents to them for possible penalty notice fine or prosecution where:
1. A child has unauthorised absence for 10 or more sessions within a rolling 100 sessions.
2. A child is continually late to school and this lateness is unauthorised for 10 or more sessions within a rolling 100 sessions.
3. A child has unauthorised absence during a public exam, formal school assessment or testing, where dates are published in advance.
(There are two registration sessions per day - morning and afternoon. A rolling 100 sessions refers to a consecutive 50 days of schooling - this does span school holidays and school years)
Registration Process
| 08:45 | The classroom doors open and the school day begins. |
| 08:55 | Classroom doors close and the school day starts. The register is taken. Any children arriving after this time will need to go through the school office and will receive a Late mark (before registers closed) on their attendance record. |
| 09:15 | Any children arriving after this time will receive a Late mark (after registers closed) on their attendance record. This is an unauthorised absence. |
| 09:30 | If a child is not in school and there has not been any contact from parents to explain the absence, the office will send a text message asking for parents to telephone the school. |
| 09:45 | If no contact has been made, the office will telephone parents on home and mobile numbers. |
| 10:00 | A second telephone is made if still no contact. If after the second phone call, staff have been unable to speak to parents to verify the children's welfare, the Head or Deputy Head will be notified and it may be deemed necessary to visit the family home to satisfy themselves that the child is safe. |
Medical Appointments
Where possible, medical and dental appointments should be arranged for the end of the day, not the start of the day. Arriving late, even after a medical appointment, is unsettling not just for your child, but also the rest of the class.
Illness
Parents should contact the school office on 01794 512362 each day their child is ill. Please ensure you provide details of the illness, so we can update our records. Please provide a specific reason; ‘feeling ill/unwell’ is not sufficient. Further details of what to do if your child has a particular condition can be found here. Guidance from Hampshire is here. Please see document below entitled 'Updated Attendance Procedures' which details our new approach to improving our school attendance to address Ofsted concerns in our latest report.
Formal Examinations, Assessment or Testing
It is essential that children are present when statutory examinations, assessment or testing is taking place. The timetable for 2022-23 is:
| Y1 | Phonics screening scheduled for week beginning 10th June 2024 |
| Y2 | Phonics screening scheduled for week beginning 10th June 2024 |
| Y4 | Multiplication Tables Check scheduled for week commencing 3rd June 2024 |
| Y6 | KS2 SATs scheduled for 13-16 May 2024 |
There have been a number of changes to legislation regarding holidays and the school year. Please read Absence During Term Time letter for more information. If after reading about the changes, you believe your request for absence fulfils the criteria for ‘exceptional circumstances’, please print and complete the Absence Request Form.