Attendance

Attendance is key to academic success, as well as preparing a student for their lives beyond school and into their future careers. Students enjoy their time at Oaks Park High school for a variety of reasons, therefore our overall attendance is very good. We work hard with families to support their son/daughter’s attendance, especially on the rare occasion their attendance is low.

In supporting parents to understand how we manage attendance we have created an Attendance Guide for Parents. This booklet covers all areas of attendance from leave of absence requests to legal proceedings and includes our approach to teaching students about the importance of punctuality.

If you have any questions, please feel free to contact your child's Pastoral Leader or Form Tutor.

Reporting Absences

If your child is not able to attend school then you should contact the School Attendance Team by 7.30am on the day of absence. You can do this by one of the following ways:

Email: attendance@oakspark.redbridge.sch.uk
Telephone: 0208 590 2245. Press Option 1 to report your child absent. Then choose one of the following options:
- Press 1 for Lower School (Year 7 & Year 8)
- Press 2 for Middle School (Year 9 & Year 10)
- Press 3 for Upper School (Year 11 & Sixth Form)

Please ensure that you include your child's Full Name and Tutor Group in any communication.

If your child is absent in school for a medical reason or an appointment, we will require evidence to authorise the absence. Please note: Authorised absences will impact your child’s overall attendance.

Punctuality

Punctuality is a key life skill for students that translates into the working world and we strive to ensure students are in good habits from a young age.

All students are expected to arrive at school by 8.20am and be in their year group zones at 8.25am. Students arriving at school after 8.25am will be marked as late.

It is recommended that travel routes to school are planned in advance to ensure students arrive on time.

The Importance of Excellent Attendance

The general guidance for excellent attendance is that students should attend school at least 96% of the time. This equates to no more than 8 days of absence across an academic year. Below is a summary table which shows how many lessons your child will miss for high levels of absence during the academic year.

Attendance below 90% attendance (approximately 19 days or more of absence across an academic year), is classed by the government as “Persistent Absence” and without sufficient evidence to explain this level of absence, families are open to intervention by the local authority, in this case the London Borough of Redbridge.

The effective implementation of the attendance policy, together with the more general work of the school in ensuring that every student has the best possible learning experience, should ensure that student attendance is high. It is proven by numerous studies that regular attendance at school will help your child get the most from their education and that pupils who attend regularly are likely to develop both academically and socially, leave school with more qualifications, improve their life chances and have greater access to employment opportunities. For these reasons staff members monitor punctuality and attendance at Oaks Park High and take action when concerning attendance patterns emerge.

Attendance Intervention- Changes from August 2024

The Department for Education (DfE) has published a new version of Working together to improve school attendance. This will become statutory guidance on 19 August 2024.

The school’s policy for attendance creates effective systems and procedures for encouraging regular school attendance, investigating and resolving the underlying causes of poor attendance and for the early identification of persistently absent students and the prevention of their absence.

The school's Stages of Intervention to support improving attendance can be found here.

Penalty Notices

The school works closely with the London Borough of Redbridge's Education Welfare Service to consider whether the issuing of a penalty notice is appropriate for each individual case where the student reaches the national threshold for consideration.

This is:

10 sessions of unauthorised absence in a rolling period of 10 school weeks. Each school day has 2 sessions (a morning and afternoon session)

This can be met with any combination of unauthorised absence

(e.g. 4 sessions of holiday taken in term time plus 6 sessions of arriving late after the register closes all within 10 school weeks)

The summary of the changes to the issuing of penalty notices can be found here.

Leave of Absence Requests

For every planned absence we request a Leave of Absence (LOA) request form to be completed at least 4 weeks prior to the absence.

The Leave of Absence request form can be accessed here. Printed copies can also be collected from the school's reception.

Each Leave of Absence request form must be fully completed with reasons (and attached evidence where appropriate). We do not approve a Leave of Absence unless there are exceptional circumstances (one -off events which are unavoidable). Family holidays or trips abroad, in particular towards the end of term, will not be counted as exceptional.

The school considers each application for term-time absence individually, taking into account the specific facts, circumstances and relevant context behind the request.

Key Terms

Please find below the definitions of important terms which are used by the School Attendance Team.

Authorised Absence

An authorised absence is when the school has given approval for a pupil to be away from school, or has accepted an explanation offered afterwards as a satisfactory justification for the absence. Only schools can authorise an absence, not parents.

This could be for the following reasons:

Illness and medical/dental appointments
Religious observance– where the day is exclusively set apart for religious observance by the religious body to which the pupil’s parents belong. A maximum of 3 (non -successive school) days will be considered for religious observance in any 1 academic year.

Unauthorised Absence

Unauthorised absence is defined as any absence that is not covered by the categories of authorised absence and where:

The school has not given approval in advance for the pupil to be absent.
The reason for the absence cannot be established or is not deemed valid by the school.
The absence falls outside the specific circumstances that schools can approve as authorised.

Please note, any absence (whether Authorised or Unauthorised) will impact your child's overall attendance.

Persistent Absent : Where a student’s attendance drops below 90%

School Attendance Meeting (SAM): A meeting held at school with parents/carers whose attendance is close to (or below) 90%.

Attendance Contract: An attendance contract is a formal written agreement between a parent and the school or local authority to address irregular attendance at school

Education Supervision Order (ESO): A formal attendance order put forward by the Education Welfare Service through a Family or High Court

Attendance Tracking

You will be able to monitor your child's attendance and punctuality on your My Child at School account. Click here to access the log in page.

Policies and Guides

Parent's Guide to Attendance
Attendance Policy

DfE Guidance - Working together to improve school attendance