At Brighton Avenue Primary School, our ambition is for all students to strive for 100% attendance. We set expectations of excellent attendance for all pupils and expect pupils to be in school every session and every day that school is open. We consider this paramount to pupils achieving their full potential and enhancing lifelong outcomes.
Our Attendance and Punctuality Policy reflects this and recognises that regular attendance has a positive effect on the motivation and attainment of pupils and is an integral part of our school ethos. We appreciate that some pupils find it harder than others to attend school and, therefore, at all stages of improving attendance we will work together with parents/carers, pupils and relevant partner agencies to remove any barriers and build strong and trusting relationships. Promoting and ensuring excellent attendance is everybody’s business within our school and community.
Our school aims to meet its obligations with regards to school attendance by ensuring every pupil has access to a full-time and efficient education to which they are entitled. Brighton Avenue Primary School acts early to address any patterns of irregular attendance aiming to create a culture in which the importance of good school attendance is understood, valued, and supported by all.
By providing a calm, orderly, safe, and supportive environment where all pupils want to be and are keen and ready to learn is the foundation of securing good attendance. Working together to put the right support in place at the right time, all school staff, parents/carers, pupils, and partners can work together to remove any barriers affecting attendance.
Our Attendance and Punctuality policy sets out our school’s position on attendance and details the procedures that all parents must follow to report their child’s absence from school and to remind them of their legal duty, to ensure their child attends school regularly.
This policy will be applied fairly and consistently, considering the individual needs of our pupils and their families who may have specific barriers to attendance. We have considered our obligations under the Equality Act 2010 and the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.
At Brighton Avenue Primary School, we follow the DfE Working together to Improve School Attendance Approach, which is statutory from August 19th 2024:
In It to Win It – Involving OUR children!
As a school, our ultimate aim is that EVERY child attend school 100% of the time and we will continue to work tirelessly to achieve this very ambitious goal. The vast majority of our children do not understand how absence relates to percentages and therefore we work on a much simple process with them through our ‘In it to Win It’ attendance scheme. A lot of thought and consultation with our children went into this incentive because we wanted to give our children ownership of it, and we truly believe, we are achieving this.
Attendance at Brighton Avenue Primary School is discussed daily with the children and celebrated EVERY half term and then annually through our Outstanding Achiever Celebration.
What is 'In It To Win It?'
Children are given their own Individual Attendance Passports (IAP) at the start of every year. New children arriving in our school at different times are given their passports on their first day of arrival. Attendance passports are divided into 6 half terms.
Children who attend school for the whole week are given ‘one’ attendance stamp at the end of every week. (Stamped by their Teacher during Golden Time) Children who have attended school for only part of the week are NOT given an attendance stamp that particular week.
At the end of every half term, children can choose whether to SPEND or SAVE their attendance stamps. If they decide to SAVE, their stamps roll on to the next half term(s). If they decide to SPEND, the children visit our ‘In it to Win it’ attendance shop on the last day of EVERY half term and buy (using their stamps) prizes, all of which carry a different value. The higher the points, the better the prize. The greater their attendance, the more attendance stamps they receive. For example: In an eight week half term, a child with 100% attendance that half term (in school every day) will get 8 attendance stamps. Whereas, as child who has been in school 7 full weeks and absent for part of one week, will be given 7 stamps and so forth. We consult with the children regularly and stock our shop with prizes the children have asked for, making our shop appealing to both boys and girls.
Unlike previous attendance incentives, In It to Win It allows the vast majority of our children of gaining a prize of some value. It gives the children the opportunity to see what other prizes we have on offer, the importance of not always being able to have what you want, the importance of setting little goals and achieving them and of course, the value of saving. We believe it is very important for our children, even from a very early age, to learn the importance of saving up for something they want but cannot afford YET!
‘In It To Win It’ also gives us (staff) another insight into which children are not collecting as many points as others and whether this is a regular occurrence. Attendance is whole school incentive and all staff are very vigilant around attendance.
‘In It To Win It’ in our school is proving to be very successful (attendance has continued to improve) and our children (through Pupil Voice) tell us they think ‘In it to Win It’ is very fair. Children are VERY keen to be in school and we know there’s been lots of discussion at home between parents and children about the importance of having a full week in school.
Our ‘In It To Win It’ shop is open on the last day of EVERY half term and Gemma Maughan (Family Support Worker) and our School Councillors run it. Prizes are on display (now through pictures due to the extension of school) in our Community Room and children set themselves little goals of which prize they would like to achieve throughout the half term.
As a school, we appreciate that our younger children may not fully understand the concept of ‘In it to Win It’ but we still involve our Early Years children because attendance is a whole school incentive and we want to instil good habits and we very much want to share our high expectations with our parents.
The school's attendance target for 2024-2025 is 100%
Our current attendance (including nursery) for this academic year so far is is 95.4%
ALL late children must be accompanied by a responsible adult. Their names will be written into the ‘Late Book’ and the register will be marked accordingly. We understand that the school mornings can be hectic, but when your child is late for school they are missing out on vital parts of their education. If your child arrives 30 minutes after the register has been taken, they will have an "unauthorised" late mark - this is the same as an "unauthorised absence".
We will be recording late arrivals and parents will be asked to come in and discuss this if their child is persistently late for school.
If your child is late it can lead to missed learning, an unsettled day and disrupts the learning of all the other children too.
Being late to school can have a considerable impact over the whole school year. The table below shows you just how much time can be missed over a year just by being 5 minutes late to school every day:
| 5 minutes late every day = 3 days of school lost a year |
| 10 minutes late every day = 6.5 days of school lost a year |
| 15 minutes late every day = 10 days of school lost a year |
| 20 minutes late every day = 13 days of school lost a year |
| 30 minutes late every day = 19 days of school lost a year |
We know that there are many parents and children who work hard to ensure that their children do come to school on time and always call to let us know if their child is ill.
Thank-you for your support in helping to raise our school attendance. Children only have one chance in school and every second counts.
If you would like any support or advice on attendance then please contact the school and we will do our best to support or signpost you to someone who can help.