Attendance and Term Dates

School Hours

School starts at 8:45 and finishes at 3:15.

This amounts to 32.5 hours each week.

If your child is going to be away from school due to illness, please contact the school before 09:10. This can be via the school gateway app, email, or by leaving a message on the School’s telephone. This ensures both parents and school know the whereabouts of children. If your child is likely to be away for a long period, or if the complaint is infectious or contagious, please telephone urgently to let us know. Information about infectious illnesses and their exclusion period is available from school.

New guidelines released by the government on attendance are here:

Woodland Grange School Procedures for Attendance are here (and on the policies page where there is also a link to the Trust Attendance policy)

WGP School Procedures for Attendance

In line with Leicestershire County Council recommendations, we will build strong school routines and monitoring or attendance. These include:

Sending out reminders to parents and children about the policy and the new government guidance in newsletters, on the website and in assemblies.
Ensuring that parents are aware of the impact of absence on the overall figures.
Encouraging children to attend regularly, punctually and be prepared for the day
Encouraging parents NOT to schedule medical appointments during the school day
Identifying and following up on unexplained absences
Making home visits (safe and well checks) – this will be a member of the Senior Leadership Team and happens when children are off sick (usually on day 4 but might be earlier) or because unexplained absence is linked with safeguarding concerns and is necessary if a child has not been seen.
Issuing letters to parents when attendance has fallen into the Persistently Absent (PA) bracket (less than 90%). This means close monitoring will take place.
If we are concerned about the number of absences for illness, we may require a parent to provide medical evidence – this does not always have to be a GP letter – medical evidence could be an appointment card, a letter from the hospital regarding an appointment, or prescription details.
Holding formal meetings if attendance is not improving
Sharing the positives when a child who was a PA changed their attendance pattern and is showing improvements.

As a result of these changes, planned leave of absence needs to be authorised in advance by the Headteacher by submitting a Leave of Absence Request form (see below). This will only be authorised for very exceptional circumstances, not for holidays. The government do not expect any holidays to be taken in term time due to the adverse impact absences have on your child’s progress and attainment. Further evidence may be requested or a meeting with the Headteacher to establish the reason for the request.

If your child has unauthorised leave of absence you may either be issued with a Penalty Notice of £160 per parent per child (discounted to £80 if paid within 21 days) or, your case could be referred by the Local Authority directly to the Magistrates’ Court for the purposes of a criminal prosecution. Please Refer to the Attendance Team Code of Conduct

Further information can be found in the Trust’s Attendance Policy.

LEAVE OF ABSENCE REQUEST FORM