One of my big frustrations is school attendance.
Most children attend and attend regularly. But we have too many who find the slightest excuse to miss out.
The importance of school attendance and the impact it has on a child’s progress, outcomes and future cannot be overstated.
I do understand barriers to accessing education can be wide and complex for an individual student and some families.
The law entitles every child to full time education suitable to their age, level of ability and any Special Educational Needs they may have.
It is the responsibility of every parent to ensure their child receives that education by being at school.
Figures from the Department for Education show students with higher attainment at the end of Key Stages 2 and 4 have higher rates of attendance over the key stages compared to those with lower attainment.
At Key Stage 4, students not achieving grades 9 to 4 in English and Maths have an overall absent rate of 8.8% compared to 5.2% for those who achieve grade 4.
The overall absent rate of students not achieving a grade 9 to 4 is more than twice as high as those achieving those grades.
Hopefully, the message is hitting home. Being in school every day it is open is crucially important to a child’s development, well-being and wider personal development.
Absence will be marked as unauthorised unless there are exceptional circumstances.
The Government has made attendance high profile. It is a priority that students are in full time education by attending school as close to 100% of the time as possible.
I do appreciate people fall genuinely ill.
But there are other times when we need to battle through. None of us feel 100% all the time.
The best place for a child to be is within a learning environment.
Sometimes, we need to show a little bit more resilience, determination and will not to give up.
There was a lot of that on show last Thursday at our sell-out Sports Presentation Night. Our thanks again to the businesses in attendance and sponsoring the event.
What a night. High quality and success among our young people were constant themes.
It was another great reflection of what we do, celebrating and rewarding our students’ achievements.
There are some talented individuals here with strong attributes and the event is an important showcase for PE, an area that has always been successful and important to us as an Academy.
We have another key event tomorrow (Thursday) when we host the first Community Café of the academic year between 3.30pm and 5pm.
It is a great opportunity for people associated with the Academy to come in, meet us and engage with the wider community.
We break up for half term on Friday. We have had seven busy and long weeks and a significant number of students can be pleased with their efforts and progress made.
Enjoy your break. It would be a treat to see a full attendance when we return on Monday, 31st October – Halloween.
