Attendance 

Westroyd Primary School & Nursery believes that all children should take maximum advantage of the opportunities offered to them in school, to enable them to reach their full potential.  Being at school on time and every day is crucial to a child maximising their potential. 

Children attending school every day:

• make better progress, both socially and academically
• find routines, school work and friendships easier to manage
• find learning more satisfying
• are more likely to progress to further and higher education

Reporting your Child's Absence

If your child is ill, you should contact the School Office on 0113 2551601 or the Early Years Office on 0113 2574178 before 9:15am.

We have updated phone line, and you now have the option to leave a message on the answer phone. Please include your child name, class and reason for absence this will then be picked up by a member of the office staff.

If your child is expected to be absent for more than one day, you MUST make contact with school on each day your child is absent, to keep us informed of your child’s illness.

Any absence that is not notified could be passed onto the Attendance Welfare Officer or Leeds Children Services to follow up. Please also remember, if your child is absent due to sickness and/or diarrhoea, they must not  return to school until 48 hours after their last incident.

If your child is not in school and we have no notification by 9:00am our policy and procedures are as follows:

Step 1 - A phone call to primary carer

Step 2 - Contact other emergency contacts

Step 3 - Home Visit

Step 4 - Risk Assessment and possible referral onto other agencies

Attendance is a key priority, every week class attendance is announced on class pages on the school website and displayed in school. 

Over the period of a term we do track a child’s individual attendance. The school will begin working with families whose attendance has dropped to 90% or below to support and challenge them to improve their child's attendance.

What should I do if my child has a medical or dentist appointment?
Please try to arrange all appointments outside of school hours. Where this is not possible, please inform the school office on 0113 2551601 or 0113 257 4178 as soon as possible, so that we can authorise the absence when evidence is provided.

https://www.nhs.uk/live-well/is-my-child-too-ill-for-school/

Punctuality 

At Westroyd Primary, the school day begins at 8.50am. Doors open for children at 8.35am. 

It is very important that children arrive at school on time as children need to settle into the daily routines and learning sessions begin promptly. Children arriving at school after 8:50am, will be recorded as late and this will be monitored during the year. 

Do you know that children who arrive a few minutes late start the day feeling more stressed and do not make a positive start to their learning? They often miss out on key messages and education. It disrupts the education of the rest of the class.

Being late to school has a significant impact on the amount of learning time lost over a school year.
The table gives you an indication of how much time is lost if regularly late.

Requesting extended leave in term time

If you need to take your child out of school during term time, you must complete an absence request form and submit this to the headteacher prior to the absence. Please note that holidays will be unauthorised and may be sent to the Local Authority for a fine. 

The Government issued amendments to the school attendance regulations which came into force from September 2013.  From September 2013 a Headteacher may not grant any leave of absence during term time unless there are exceptional circumstances; a family holiday would not be classed as exceptional circumstances.