School Attendance

We are committed to maintaining a high level of attendance. It is your statutory duty to keep the school informed about the reason for any absence.  Please telephone the school office on the first morning of your child's absence and send them into school with a follow-up letter on their return.  If at any time your child is suffering from a contagious complaint please keep them off school until they are no longer contagious.  Currently, we ask that if a child has been vomiting that they be kept off until they have been clear for 48 hours. Please note that this may be decreased to 24 hours  if it is felt this is appropriate. If you are unsure about our current exclusion period, please contact the school office. 

Please avoid medical or dental appointments during the school day.  If you have a hospital appointment for your child during school time, please notify the school office in advance if possible. 

A copy of our Attendance Policy can be found in the Policies section of our website.

Leave of absence

In accordance with the new Government regulations, the school is unable to authorise any holidays during term time unless there are exceptional circumstances.  If an unauthorised holiday is taken, the matter will be passed to the Attendance Advisory Service for consideration for a Fixed Penalty Notice to be issue

ATTENDANCE MATTERS

     97% +      EXCELLENT

        95% - 97%                    GOOD             

                     93% - 95%                   BEGINNING TO CAUSE CONCERN

                            BELOW 93%                            WORRYING AND LESS CHANCE OF SUCCESS 

                            85% PERSISTENT ABSENCE                                              SERIOUS ATTENDANCE CONCERN                 

Did you know....

• Being 5 minutes late to school each day means that your child loses 3 1/2 days of learning over the course of a school year!
• Late marks count as unauthorised absence on your child's registration certificate.
• Being absent from school for 10 days will make your child's attendance drop below the government target of 96%.
• Being absent from school for 5 days is enough for the school to begin the process of issuing a Penalty Notice Fine. 

Balfour Infant School is keen to support all its children to achieve their very best. This is why we will be taking a firm but fair line on attendance this year. Attendance will be monitored daily and letters will be sent out to parents regularly to inform them of their child's current "percentage attendance". School will be inviting parents to meet with the headteacher to discuss problematic attendance to ensure we work together towards improvement. School will promote and respond positively to improving attendance through things like certificates and stickers issued at attendance assemblies. We will recognise improvements and ongoing good attendance!

REMEMBER:

SCHOOL STARTS AT 8.40AM

SCHOOL ENDS AT 3.10PM

Please avoid medical and dental appointments during the school day. If you have a hospital appointment for your child during school time, please notify the school office in advance if possible.

School Closures

For information regarding school closures (such as bad weather) there are a few options: -

•  Information will be sent to you directly from the Balfour Infant School App if you have downloaded it.   Information regarding the App is available at the bottom of the Home Page of this website.

• OpenCheck for Parents: OpenCheck allows to you check the status of your children's school on any given day.  This easy-to-use service presents information regarding school closures in case of emergency, severe weather or any news which may affect children's ability to attend or access the school. It also allows you to check scheduled school closures and term dates. The service is free to use* to both schools and parents, and can be accessed via the web or by telephone.  

• Alternatively you can also look on this website, the schools status will be scrolling across the SCHOOLS HOMEPAGE.  If there are many people trying to access this website at once it may not be possible to view this site!