Attendance

At White Meadows Primary Academy, we know that children learn more when they come to school every day. We know that learning more helps children achieve more and this is essential for their success in the years after they leave us here at White Meadows.

The school gates open and close based on which year group your child is in as follows:

Our school days, including all our staff-training days, are listed on our Term Dates page.

School Days

Our annual school calendar is timetabled for children to attend school for 190 days in the year. This means that there are 175 days, 14 weeks a year, that children are not required to attend school. These holidays are spread throughout the year. Whilst we understand that travel and accommodation costs can be higher at these times of year, we must insist that these days and weeks are used to go on holiday and/or see extended family. Any decision made to shorten a holiday, or holiday in the UK to save money, for example, will help your child attend school more and therefore learn more. We must make these decisions in our children’s best interests.

Term-time Holidays

Because we care about your child’s learning, achievement and future, we will not grant term-time holiday requests. Penalty notices will be issued and these increase in cost with every additional holiday and may result in criminal action being taken by the authorities. We appreciate being informed of these as they help us in our Safeguarding duty to protect your child.

Illness

We understand that children get unwell and this sometimes stops them from attending school. Rest and recuperation is important so we ask that this is prioritised in the evenings and weekends when children are unwell. Children sometimes have certain

symptoms, such as vomiting, that they may need a day or two away from school to get better. For most illnesses, children do not need rest and recuperation as they get better much quicker than adults. Some medicine before or after school may be needed, your local pharmacy is always available to give advice on this. Making sure that your child’s vaccinations are up to date is also helpful as these will help prevent them from getting ill.

If your child is unwell regularly then we would expect you to seek medical advice. Please share appointment confirmation cards/texts/emails with us as these can help to prevent prosecution for poor attendance. Please ask for these appointments to be outside of school hours wherever possible.

If your child’s attendance starts to cause us concern, we will invite you to come to the school for a meeting to discuss. Improvement plans are likely to be written at that meeting.

We believe that by working together we can overcome barriers to good school attendance to ensure that your child or children get the best start in their educational journey which we believe will help them in whatever they want to do in the future.