Dear Parents/Carers,
We are seeing an increasing number of students attempting to truant lessons. This is unacceptable and we are concerned that children are not only missing out on their learning, but also causing disruption to the learning of others and taking up valuable time of staff having to deal with internal truancy throughout the day, rather than supporting students with their learning and other pastoral support.
The vast majority of students at The St Lawrence Academy attend all of their lessons and we appreciate these students and their hard work. For a small minority however, we require a firm and consistent process to ensure that in the future they make better decisions about attendance to their lessons.
If a student either leaves their lesson for an unauthorised reason or makes the decision to not attend their timetabled lesson, staff will follow the below process:
- The student will be taken directly to our new RESET room, where they will spend the next two timetabled lessons and a break. During this time students will receive support in accessing the learning they are missing and also support in unpicking the issues around the refusal to attend lessons.
- If the student refuses you will be contacted and asked to speak to your child on the telephone to instruct them to enter RESET, supporting them to make the right choice.
- If the student continues to refuse then, unfortunately, they will be suspended for the remainder of that school day and the following school day as persistent truancy and defiance are breaches of our behaviour policy.
This is a serious consequence and results in students missing learning time and the suspension being recorded on their permanent record. As you will agree, being in lessons is vital for your child to succeed but we also need to ensure that students that are getting it right are not having their learning disrupted.
A big thank you to all of our students that get it right on a daily basis and are making excellent progress across their studies.
Have a restful half term and we look forward to welcoming students back on Monday 19th February ready to line up at 8.25am.
Yours sincerely
Mrs Pattinson
Mrs G Pattinson
Deputy Headteacher – Behaviour & Safeguarding
