Author: Natalie McGillivary

Attendance

Natalie McGillivary

During this final week of the half term, I would like to kindly ask you to check your child’s current attendance and punctuality via Class Charts. Our own experience at Lymm High School over the years, as well as research nationally, consistently shows that students with good attendance are much more likely to have a better experience at school and to achieve better academic results.

As a reminder, we say that children should be aiming to have attendance of at least 97%. It is also worth bearing in mind that the government state that anyone with attendance below 90% is classed as being ‘persistently absent‘ from school.

Any absence at this time of year, because we are so early in the academic year, can have a major impact on attendance figures. If your child has already had a few days off, it is even more important that they do not miss any more days; it might sometimes feel like the odd day ‘here and there’ but it can be surprising how quickly the days add up.

You may remember from the Information, Advice and Guidance evenings earlier this term that we shared with you the average grades our Year 11 cohort achieved last summer. Students with 95%+ attendance, had an average grade of a 6+, which is equivalent to getting grade 7’s in half of all subjects and grade 6’s in the other half. However, for students with below 95% attendance, this dropped to an average of grade 5 in all subjects and for those with below 85%, to a grade 4 in all subjects. This clearly demonstrates the huge impact that even relatively small drops in attendance can have on pupil progress, not to mention all the extra-curricular opportunities and pastoral support that can be missed.

As always, our general advice is that it is usually best to send your child in even if they are feeling a little under the weather on the understanding that there is support available in school and we will always contact you if it is necessary. You may also find this information from the NHS useful: Is my child too ill for school? – NHS.

I would also like to remind you of the importance of students attending school on time, every day. All students should be on site by 8:20am in preparation for registration which begins at 8:25am. Our registers close for the AM session at 8:55am, students arriving after this time are marked absent for the morning session, which has a huge impact on their overall attendance. A quick reminder of our late procedures here:

  • Students arriving after 8:25am are reminded to go straight to Form
  • Students arriving after 8:45am must sign in at Student Services

Students will be issued with a lunchtime detention if they are late to school, miss Form or are late to lessons.

If you do need to report your child absent, please do this via the ‘Report Absence’ section of Class Charts only. Please remember that we do not grant leave of absence for holidays.

If you have any questions or concerns about your child’s attendance or punctuality, please do get in touch with your child’s Pastoral Manager or Head of Year.  We are here to help!

Many thanks,
Mrs Jennings