Please find below copy of letter re: Attendance sent to families on Friday 9th Dec 2016
Dear Parent / Carer
SCHOOL ATTENDANCE
As you are all aware the Welsh Government and the Local Authority have placed a strong focus on regular, good school attendance. This is then continued at school where we are challenged by the Local Authority to meet targets, set by them, to raise levels of attendance across the whole school. Many of you will also be aware that attendance also forms part of the school’s Inspection Criteria and was a recommendation in the previous Inspection (2012) with ‘satisfactory progress’ being judged in the re-visit in May 2015. We aim to ensure that any future Inspections show that we have made at least ‘good’ progress!
Our target, set by the Local Authority, is 95.4%.
The school is currently below this target, even though we have not yet completed a whole term with current attendance now at 94.9%.
In order to achieve the minimum of 95% target for every child’s attendance at school we will be introducing a new initiative which will begin at the end of this term and I would like to request your support to help us reach, and hopefully exceed, our target.
We have already started a part of this initiative:
- texts were sent out last week which let families know your child’s class attendance, as well as identifying the class with the best attendance. This will continue on a weekly basis
As well as this, each child will have a letter sent home at the end of each term. This will identify which ‘band’ your child’s attendance is in, as detailed below:
- Green Letter if your child’s attendance is 95% or above – Excellent attendance – meets Welsh Government target for your child.
- Yellow Letter for attendance 90% - 94.9% - this attendance needs a slight improvement to meet targets
- Amber Letter 86% - 89.9% - this attendance is monitored closely at school
- Red Letter Below 86% - This attendance is a considerable cause of concern. If improvements are not made the school has no choice but to follow Welsh Government and Local Authority procedures.
We also have a series of rewards for good attendance:
- The best class each week has an extra 10 minutes play on the following Monday
- Any class achieving 100% for the full week receives an extra treat (for example pop and biscuits etc.). Ash class won this last week!
- Children who have achieved 100% at the end of each term receive a certificate, as well as a small prize
- Children who achieve 100% for the full year receive an amazon Gift Voucher in the Summer Term.
I hope that you find this information useful and look forward to working with you to meet our school targets. Our Attendance Policy is available on the Parents’ page of our Moodle website.
