At Erasmus Darwin Academy we take attendance very seriously and we believe that every child who gains a place at the Academy should attend school every single day.

The law entitles every child of compulsory school age to an efficient, full-time education. It is the legal responsibility and legal duty of every parent to make sure their child attends school every single day.

Good attendance is proven to lead to strong educational achievement. Not only that, a child that attends Erasmus Darwin Academy will leave the Academy ready for life in modern Britain and better prepared for their next steps in education, training or employment.

Educational Statistics:

Nationally, students who had an absence rate of 91% or less did not achieve a grade 4+ in English and Mathematics (grade 4 is the new standard pass to indicate a student has achieved a recognised level of education).
Nationally, those students who had an absence rate of 90% or below have an increased chance of extra-familial harms including young offenders and serious violence.
Our own Progress 8 score (which is a figure that measures the value a secondary school adds to a student’s progress from the end of Key Stage 2 to Key Stage 4) indicates that students with 96% attendance or better achieve, on average, half a grade greater compared to students whose attendance levels are below this.

Attendance Rewards:

In order to promote the importance of good attendance for the students, we use the following rewards:

Issuing a weekly excellence award for those students who have 100% attendance from the previous week.
Sharing in their progress success during our termly Celebration of Achievement Assemblies. There is always a strong correlation between good academic progress and good levels of attendance.
Acknowledging those students with 100% attendance at the end of each academic year, as well as those with 100% over multiple years.

Why is Attendance Important?

We hope that our students will attend 100% of the time. If your child isn’t in school, they’re missing crucial face to face learning. While we’ll help students to catch up as much as we can, this isn’t the same as being in the lesson. Research has shown that poor school attendance can often result in lack of progress and achievement.

This table shows the number of important learning hours your child would be missing for different levels of attendance:

Percentage		Learning missed in a year
100%	= This is everyone’s target and is excellent attendance	0 hours
96% – 99%	= 7.5 or less days of absence in one year. Good attendance is the minimum expected	96% – 37.5 hours
91% – 95%	= Between 8 and 18 days of absence in one year. Your child’s chances of success are at risk.	93% – 65 hours
90% or less	= 19 or more days of absence in one year. Your child is classed as a persistent absentee and their attendance must improve urgently.	85% – 142.5 hours
Example: Simon’s attendance is usually around 80% each year. However, 80% means he is absent from lessons for the equivalent of one day every week. If Simon continues to attend for 80% of the time, then over his 5 years at the Academy he will have missed the equivalent of one whole school year (190 days of education)

What Can You Do To Support Your Child’s Attendance?

Don’t arrange family holidays, shopping trips, birthday treats etc during school hours.

Take an interest in your child’s education – ask about their work and encourage them to get involved in school activities.

Encourage your child to attend if they’re suffering from minor illness such as headache, colds etc to improve their resilience.

Download our MyEd app so we can easily communicate with you about your child’s attendance. You can view current attendance and report absences.

If your child is refusing to attend school, make sure we’re aware of this so that we can support you. The sooner we know about it, the more effective we can be in supporting you.

Medical Appointments

Medical appointments should, where possible, be arranged outside of the school day however, we appreciate in some cases this can be difficult. If you are unable to book one at any other time, you should make the school aware of the appointment beforehand by phone call, text or email.

In some cases, we will request evidence of the appointment to support your child’s attendance records, such as a hospital letter or confirmation email. This can be taken to Reception by the student or emailed to: Admin@eda.staffs.sch.uk

The timings of the Academy day mean that students receive their morning attendance mark in Registration and their afternoon mark in Period 4 (12:25pm-1:25pm) If your child arrives at school before 9:30am from an appointment then this will not impact on their attendance.

Leave of Absence / Holidays

All requests for Leave of Absence must ideally be submitted 15 days in advance of the absence. Paper forms can be collected from Reception or electronic version can be downloaded using the link at the bottom of the page.

Headteachers are only allowed to authorise leave of absence during term time in exceptional circumstances, therefore it is rare that we give the authorisation to take your child out of school during term time. However, we do consider each application and circumstance individually therefore if you have documents that support the request E.g. Wedding invitation, proof of flight changes, sporting event letter etc. please attach this to your application. Unauthorised leave of absence could lead to a Penalty Notice being issued by the local authority, per parent, per child.

Punctuality

Punctuality and time management are both vital skills all of our young people will need for their life after education. Arriving at school on time means your child can be fully prepared for a positive day at school and are not met with late sanctions first thing in a morning. Please ensure you inform us before 9am if your child will not be attending school as normal, the Attendance team will follow this up if your child is absent without a reason as per our normal Attendance procedure. This is to ensure all students are safe and accounted for in line with our Safeguarding policy. The morning registers close at 9:30am and all students who arrive at school after this time will receive a mark that affects their attendance.

Late to School

Parents have a legal responsibility to ensure their child arrives at school on time.

All students should be through the gates by 8:35am to arrive in Tutor by 8:40am. Students arriving after 8:40am are late to school. If a student is late to school at any time during the week for no valid reason, they will be issued a detention for the next available evening. The detention issued will increase in duration the more times they are late in a week.

Late to Lessons

If a student is late arriving to their lesson for no valid reason, they will be issued with a late mark (L). An accumulation of late marks will result in the following sanctions:

MyEd app

Attendance Policy

Term Dates

Leave of Absence Forms

Leave of Absence request Letter

Leave Of Absence Request Form - 1 Day (MS Word)

Leave Of Absence Request Form - 1 Day (PDF)

Leave Of Absence Request Form (MS Word)

Leave Of Absence Request Form (PDF)

Further Queries

If you have any concerns relating to your child’s attendance, please contact their Tutor, House Principal or email attendance@eda.staffs.sch.uk