• Recognise and promote the importance of school attendance and punctuality
• Ensure school leaders fulfil expectations and statutory duties
• Regularly review attendance and punctuality data, discussing and challenging trends, and helping school leaders focus improvement efforts on the individual pupils or cohorts who need it the most
• Ensure school staff receive adequate training on attendance
• Share effective practice on the management and improvement of attendance and punctuality across schools

• Every pupil of compulsory school age is entitled to an efficient full-time education suitable to their age, aptitude, and any special educational need they may have.
• Newbridge Preparatory School expects high standards of attendance and punctuality from all its pupils and will work together with families to achieve this.
• Develop and maintain a whole school culture that promotes the benefits of high attendance and punctuality
• Fulfil their legal responsibility in the completion of pupil registers.
• Ensure good level of Attendance (95+%)
• Ensure good level of Punctuality (95+%)
• Monitor attendance within the school, identify issues and put procedures in place to work with families and the Local Authority to support children in accessing their right to a high-quality education.

• Parents of children of compulsory school age are required to ensure that they receive efficient full-time education, whether by regular school attendance or otherwise. This starts at the beginning of the term after that in which the child becomes five.
• Ensure good level of Attendance (95+%)
• Ensure good level of Punctuality (95+%)
• Contact the school on the first day of any absence to explain the reason for the absence. Parents should understand that in law, it is the school who decides whether the absence is going to be authorised or not. Schools will base this judgement on the reason provided for the absence and/or the level of absence.
• Parents must write a note to the school offering a reason for any absence and provide medical evidence where possible.
• Parents must NOT expect any leave of absence to be granted for the purpose of a holiday.
• Parents need to see themselves as partners with the school in the education of their children.
• Parents should ensure that their children arrive at school on time.
• Parents should ensure that their children are in the correct, clean uniform
• Parents should ensure that their children are in a condition to learn, ie had enough sleep, regular meals, clean etc.
• Parents should ensure that their children have a respect for education and for those who deliver it.
• Parents should ensure that their children complete their homework on time.
• Parents should ensure that their children observe the school’s rules and codes of conduct.

For all day pupils of compulsory school age, the attendance register must be completed at the start of the morning session and the afternoon session. It must show whether the pupil is:

• present;
• absent;
• attending an approved educational activity outside school approved by the school and supervised by a person approved by the school;
• unable to attend through exceptional circumstances (unavoidable closure of school site or part of it; unavailability of transport provided by school or local authority, where the home is not within walking distance);
• taking authorised absence (granted leave of absence by the Headmistress; unable to attend by reason of sickness or unavoidable cause; observing a day exclusively set apart for religious observance by the religious body to which the parent belongs);
• taking unauthorised absence (if no reason is established when the register is taken; the entry may be corrected later when the reason is established).
• Registers are recorded electronically by staff in the management information system.
• The register codes are set out in Appendix 1 together with explanatory notes.

• Pre-nursery opens at 8.00am
• Morning Registration for all pupils is between 8.30 and 8.45am
• Afternoon Registration for Pre-Nursery, and Nursery and Reception is 1.00pm.
• Afternoon registration for all other pupils is between 1.30 and 1.35pm
• Children and pupils arriving after the register is closed will be marked as ‘late’
• Lower School closing time is 3.15pm
• Upper School closing time is 3.45pm.

Parents need to notify the school office of their child’s absence either in writing, by email office@newbridgeprepschool.org.uk , personal contact, or telephone call (01902 751088) or by leaving a message on our absence line voicemail at the beginning of the first day of absence. The school should be informed of the reason for the absence and, if possible, the expected date of the child’s return to school. The school will always contact the parent on the first day of an unexplained absence in order to obtain a reason for a child’s absence.

The school has more than one emergency contact number for each pupil. If no contact can be made, then the school will attempt to contact the child’s parents using the other school contact numbers for the child. If the child is known to any other service such as Children’s Social Care or Family Support, then the school will contact them for relevant information. The school will ascertain the reason for the absence; ensure that proper safeguarding action is taken as required; identify whether the absence is approved or not; and identify the correct code to be used before entering it on to the School’s electronic register.

The school always sends parents the term dates over a year in advance in order that holidays can be arranged in school holidays without disrupting the children’s education. Please note that it is the school’s policy usually not to allow holiday to be taken during term.

Applications for leave of absence should be made in writing to the school office and will be considered by the Headmistress who will determine the length of time the pupil can be absent from school. Leave of absence will only be granted in exceptional circumstances.

Authorised absence is whether the school has given approval for a pupil of compulsory school age to be absent from school or has accepted an explanation offered afterwards as satisfactory justification for absence. Absences will only be authorised when the Headmistress is satisfied that the reason for absence is genuine and meets the following criteria:

• The child is attending an approved educational activity off site, i.e. interviews, school trips, sporting events, music examinations etc;
• The child is unable to attend through exceptional circumstances (unavoidable closure of school site or part of it; unavailability of transport provided by school or local authority, where the home is not within walking distance);
• The child is observing a religious festival;
• The child has an agreed medical appointment and the school has been notified in advance;
• The child is too ill to come to school and parents have given specific symptoms;
• There are specific circumstances, usually agreed in advance by the Headmistress, where a child is unable to attend the school, i.e. parent graduation, family bereavement and/or funeral, public performances, emergencies, family weddings (usually for 1 day only, although for weddings in foreign countries, the Headmistress has the discretion to authorise up to 5 days);
• A temporary time-limited part-time timetable, where the pupil is of compulsory school age, both the parent who the pupil normally lives with and the school agree the pupil should temporarily be educated on a part-time basis for exceptional reasons and have agreed the times and dates when the pupil will be expected to attend school as part of that timetable;
• Leave for Exceptional circumstances can be granted at the discretion of the Headmistress. Each application will be considered individually taking into account the specific facts and circumstances and relevant background context behind the request. If granted, the Headmistress will determine the length of time the pupil can be away from school;
• Children of non-compulsory school age will be allowed to be absent for sessions they are not timetabled.

All other absences must be treated as unauthorised and referred to the Headmistress. The appropriate code will be used in the register.

Examples of Unauthorised Absence could be:

• Family Birthday
• Holidays not agreed*
• Hair cuts
• Buying shoes or uniform
• Illness of grandparents and extended family members
• Trips to airports
• Non urgent appointments dental/ optician etc.
• Shopping
• Looking after other children

No parent can demand leave of absence for the purpose of a holiday as of right. The Headmistress has discretionary power to grant authorised leave of absence on behalf of the Directors. Holidays within term-time will normally be regarded as unauthorised.

All teaching staff are required to monitor attendance and punctuality in the classes or forms they teach and report any concerns to the Senior Attendance Champion. The Senior Attendance Champion will monitor the Attendance Registers regularly for any emerging patterns of absence or when a pupil is absent without a good reason or if a pupil’s attendance or punctuality falls below 90%. If such a pupil is identified from this monitoring, then the Senior Attendance Champion will work together with the pupil and their family to understand the barriers to attendance/punctuality and offer support to improve their attendance and/or punctuality.

If a pupil is absent unexplained for 10 or more consecutive school days, or is off due to continuous illness for 15 school days or more without sufficient explanation or medical verification, the school will regard the absence as a serious concern. In such instances, the school reserves the right to alert the local authority or other relevant authorities to investigate the child’s welfare and education.

This procedure aligns with statutory requirements under the Pupil Registration (England) Regulations, which require schools to report pupils with continuous unauthorised absence of ten school days to the local authority, and those with illness absences amounting to 15 days where there are reasonable grounds to suspect a pupil will miss further schooling. www.childlawadvice.org.uk

Before reporting to external authorities, the Senior Attendance Champion (or designated senior staff) will make reasonable efforts to contact the pupil’s family (phone calls, letters, home visits) and document all such attempts. This escalation to authorities will be considered only when supportive measures have been attempted or where there is a safeguarding concern.

The Senior Attendance Champion, Mrs. G. Sangha office@newbridgeprepschool.org.uk or (01902 751088) monitors the attendance registers and will liaise with Class Teachers on pupils’ attendance. The Senior Attendance Champion has the following responsibilities:

• Promote good attendance and punctuality
• Report to the Headmistress any emerging patterns of absence or when a pupil is absent without a good reason or if a pupil’s attendance or punctuality falls below 90% (persistent absence) or below 50% (severely absent).
• Work with the parents of the pupil to discuss the reasons or barriers for their low attendance or low punctuality and how their attendance or punctuality can improve, with support from the school if necessary.
• Liaise with Local Authority to support families and pupils whose attendance does not improve after the steps above or continues to remain below 90% and below 50%.

Promoting Good Attendance and Punctuality
Parents are informed of attendance % each term on the End of Term Report.

The Senior Attendance Champion will use attendance and punctuality data rigorously to support pupils with increasing levels of absence, arriving at school late or taking leave in term-time without permission before it becomes a regular pattern.

The Senior Attendance Champion will work with the Headmistress to intervene as early as possible and agree with families an action plan for pupils with high levels of absence and/or poor levels of punctuality, and those demonstrating growing disengagement with the school.

The Senior Attendance Champion will work with the Headmistress to put additional support in place, where necessary, working with families and partners, and agree a joint approach with local authorities for all severely absent pupils.

The school will prioritise providing support first before attendance legal intervention. As absence is so often a symptom of wider issues a family is facing, the school will always work

together with families, partners and local authorities to understand the barriers to attendance and provide support. Where that is not successful, or is not engaged with, the law protects pupils’ right to an education and provides a range of legal interventions to formalise attendance improvement efforts, and where all other avenues have been exhausted, enforce it through prosecuting parents. Attendance legal intervention can only be used for pupils of compulsory school age and decisions should be made on an individual case by case basis. The school and local authorities will work together and make use of the full range of legal interventions rather than relying solely on penalty notices or prosecution. The school and local authorities will decide whether to use them in an individual case after considering the individual circumstances of a family. These are:

• Attendance contracts, a formal agreement between the parent and the school or local authority to address irregular attendance;
• Education supervision orders, which is made though a Family or High Court, giving the Local Authority a more formal role in advising, helping and directing the pupil and parent(s) to ensure the pupil receives an efficient, full-time, suitable education;
• Attendance Prosecution, if all other voluntary or formal support has failed or support is deemed inappropriate in the individual circumstances of the case, as a last resort the Local Authority can prosecute the parent(s) in the Magistrates Court, which could lead to a fine or prison sentence.
• Parenting orders, which can be imposed by the Court following conviction for non-attendance, which can include a requirement for parent(s) to attend counselling or guidance sessions for up to 3 months.

Further details can be found in ‘Working Together to improve Attendance (August 2024)’. If any of the above are used the Headmistress and local authorities will make it clear that it is the most appropriate intervention to change parental behaviour and in making the decision to use an intervention, will have regard to their safeguarding duties as set out in ‘Keeping Children Safe in Education’.

The school maintains the Admissions Register electronically and the names of all pupils (both compulsory and non-compulsory school age) are entered on the Admissions Register.

Expected first day of attendance
The school enters pupils’ names on the admissions register on the first day that the school and a person with control of the pupil’s attendance have agreed that the pupil will attend the school. If no date has been agreed or notified, the pupil’s name must be entered on the first day they attend the school. Names must be added before, or at the beginning of the first session on that day.

Mid-year admissions
Where a child is admitted to the school part way through the academic year, their name will be placed on the Admissions Register on the agreed date of admission (or the first day they actually attend, if earlier). This ensures that all pupils, including those joining mid-year, are formally placed on roll in accordance with the Education (Pupil Registration) (England) Regulations 2006. The school will also record the details of the child’s previous school, notify the local authority of the admission as required, and make timely updates to the register.

Pupil information
The school records the personal details of every pupil at the school in the admission register. The register includes the following information for every pupil:

• full name;
• name the pupil uses at school;
• sex;
• address;
• the full name and address of each of the pupil’s parents;
• which of the pupil’s parents, if any, the pupil normally lives with and at least one telephone number by which each such parent can be contacted in an emergency. The DfE’s advice is that where reasonably practicable, schools should hold an emergency contact number for more than one person for each pupil;
• day, month and year of birth;
• day, month and year of the pupil’s starting day at the school;
• name and address of the last school the pupil attended, if any.

Pupils with a new address and/or school
Where a parent of a pupil informs the school that the pupil will live at another address, whether in addition to or instead of the address at which the pupil currently lives, the school ensures that the admission register contains:

• the address;
• the full name of each parent the pupil will normally live with;
• the date when the pupil will start normally living there.

Where a person with control of a pupil’s attendance has told the school that the pupil is or will be attending another school, the school ensures that the admissions register contains:

• the name of the other school;
• the date when the pupil began or will begin attending that school.

This also applies where the school itself is requiring the pupil to attend another school, for example to receive education intended to improve their behaviour (off site direction).

It is vital that the admissions register is kept up to date. The school encourages parents to inform them of any changes whenever they occur and ensures the admissions register is amended as soon as possible.

A pupil’s name can only be deleted from the admissions register for a reason set out in regulation 9 of the School Attendance (Pupil Registration) (England) Regulations 2024. When any of the situations set out in regulation 9 occurs, the pupil’s name must be deleted. A pupil’s name must not be removed for any other reason and doing so could constitute off-rolling.

In accordance with regulation 13(4) to (6), the school will make a return to the local authority when a pupil’s name is deleted from the admissions register (a Deletion Return). This does not apply where the pupil’s name is deleted at or after the end of the last term of the school year when they are in the school’s most senior class (for example, pupils who leave the school at the end of Year 6), unless the local authority has requested such information.

Where a school notifies the local authority that a pupil’s name is deleted from the admissions register, as set out in regulation 13(4), the school will provide the local authority with the following information about the pupil from the admissions register:

• full name;
• address;
• the full name and address of any parent the pupil normally lives with;
• at least one telephone number by which any parent the pupil normally lives with can be contacted in an emergency;
• if applicable, the pupil’s future address, the full name and address of the parent who the pupil is going to live with, and the date the pupil will start living there;
• if applicable, the name of the pupil’s other school and when the pupil began or will begin to attend the school;
• the reason set out in regulation 9(1) or (3) under which the pupil’s name has been deleted from the admissions register.

A school will not retrospectively delete a pupil’s name from the admissions register or attendance register. The admissions register and attendance register is an accurate record of who is a registered pupil and their attendance at any given time. A pupil’s attendance is recorded up until the date that the pupil’s name is deleted from the admissions register.

Detailed reasons for deleting the name of a pupil of compulsory school age are available in the DfE’s ‘Working Together to Improve Attendance (August 2024)’.

The school uses an electronic management information system to keep the attendance and admissions registers to improve accuracy, speed up the process of sharing and analysing information, and make returns to the Local Authority and DfE easier.

The school will preserve every entry in the attendance or admission register for 6 years from

the date the data was entered. Where amendments are made, all schools must ensure the registers show the original entry, the amended entry, the reason for the amendment, the date on which the amendment was made, and the name of the person who made the amendment. As the attendance register is a record of the pupil’s presence at the time it was taken, this register should only routinely be amended where the reason for absence cannot be established at the time it is taken and it is subsequently necessary to correct the entry.

Written and Reviewed by NBB 27/09/2024
Reviewed 23/7/25 by NBB

/ Present (morning session)

\ Present (afternoon session)

L Late arrival before the register is closed

K Attending education provision provided by the local authority

V Educational visit or trip

P Participating in a sporting activity

W Attending work experience

B Attending any other educational activity

C1 Leave of absence for the purpose of participating in a regulated performance

M Medical/Dental appointments

J1 Attending an interview for admission to another educational institution or for employment

S Study leave for a public examination

X Not required to be in school (used for sessions for children of non-compulsory school age are not expected to attend)

C2 Leave of absence for a compulsory school age pupil subject to a part-time timetable

D Dual registered at another school, ie pupil referral unit, hospital or special school

C Leave of absence for exceptional circumstances

T Parent travelling for occupational circumstances

R Religious observance

I Illness – communicated to school (not medical or dental appointments)

E Suspended or permanently excluded

Q Unable to attend school because of a lack of access arrangements

Y1 Unable to attend due to transport normally provided not being available

Y2 School fully or partially closed to pupils or widespread travel disruption

Y3 Unable to attend due to part of the school premises being closed

Y4 Unable to attend due to the whole school site being unexpectedly closed

Y5 Unable to attend as pupil is in criminal detention

Y6 Unable to attend in accordance with public health guidance or law

Y7 Unable to attend because of any other unavoidable cause

G Holiday not granted by the school

N No reason yet provided for absence

O Unauthorised absence in other or unknown circumstances

U Arrived in school after registration has closed

Z Prospective pupil not on admissions register

# Planned whole school closure

NB If no reason has been provided then an ‘N’ is first entered and this is later corrected (no more than 5 working days after the session) to the appropriate symbol (in this case only, overwriting is allowable in an electronic system) and N must not be allowed to remain indefinitely.