Attendance
Why attend every day?
Good school attendance gives your child the opportunity for success and helps develop skills for life. Your child should attend school every day unless there is an unavoidable cause like illness.
If there is an issue please contact the school and ask to speak with your child's Head of Year, Assistant Heads of Year or Miss R Cozens to seek support and advice.
Hatch End High School is committed to ensuring that every child reaches their full learning and development potential. One of the most important aspects of gaining a great set of results and learning how to succeed in life is to ensure that you have a good record of attendance and punctuality. These two areas are tools for life and are two of the most important skills we acquire when at school.
In a perfect world every school would like every child to have 100% attendance as this would appear achievable when you consider the amount of school holidays that the children are entitled to. However, Hatch End High School recognises the fact that sometimes children are sick and cannot come into school or there may be a family emergency that the child has to attend. We also appreciate that it is important that families are able to practise their religious beliefs and to enable them to do so we agree to 3 days off per school year for religious observance.
What parents can expect from the Attendance team
If your child maintains 97 – 100% attendance
- Good attendance and punctuality are recognised by the Headteacher and Head of Year.
What happens when attendance starts to fall below 97%
- Parents will receive a letter advising them that their child’s attendance has dipped below what Hatch End High School considers to be acceptable (School Warning Letter 1).
When attendance dips below 95%
- Parents will receive a letter advising them of their child’s attendance figure. This letter includes information regarding the legal implications of poor attendance. The parents are invited to make an appointment with the Attendance Officer to discuss their child’s attendance and the way forward for Hatch End High School to support both the parents and the pupil to attend school more regularly.
- Parents are also informed that absences will no longer be authorised without medical evidence (School Warning Letter 2).
- The parents will meet with the Attendance Officer. This is an opportunity for the parents to make Hatch End High School aware of any issues at home or school that could be contributing to their child’s reluctance to attend. The Attendance Officer will inform the parents of what the legal implications could be if their child fails to improve their attendance. A plan of action will be drawn up.
When attendance continues to drop below 93%
- If an Attendance meeting has taken place and there is still no improvement, we may then move to issue an Education Penalty Notice (£80 fine issued by the Local Authority) and an EPN Warning letter will be sent. This will explain that if there is further unauthorised absence over the next 15 days of monitoring, an EPN will be issued (School Warning Letter 3).
- An EPN can be issued when a child has missed 10 or more sessions (5 days) for unauthorised reasons within a rolling period of 10 school weeks.
- At this point we would also be looking to involve the Early Support Team at Harrow Children’s Services to offer additional support.
When attendance drops to 90% and below
- The child is now classified as a Persistent Absentee.
- If attendance continues to decline a 1st Court Warning letter will be sent (Court Warning Letter 1) advising that our next steps would be to involve the LA Attendance Officer. This means that legal proceedings may be initiated.
- If there is still no improvement this will result in the 2nd Court warning letter (Court Warning Letter 2) and an invite to attend a Pre Court Attendance Panel with the Local Authority Attendance Officer.
It is our duty to report to the London Borough of Harrow any child who is taken out of school during term time for the purpose of a holiday. Again, we have given parents every opportunity to contact the school if there are any extenuating circumstances to be taken into consideration. Once the Attendance team is satisfied that there has been no extenuating circumstances, the time off is recorded with a G code (family holiday not agreed) and the case will be referred to the legal team at the London Borough of Harrow who will go ahead and issue a Education Penalty Notice (£80 fine).
London Borough of Harrow advice to parents on EPNs
School Attendance Intervention Model (harrow.gov.uk)
