Attendance at Broadoak Academy

Please read the letter linked here and below from our Associate Assistant Principal for Attendance – Mrs De-Long:

Attendance at Broadoak Academy – Information Letter for Parents and Carers – March 2023

Dear parent / carer,

I am writing to you firstly, to introduce myself and secondly, to highlight the importance of attendance on your child’s learning and future education pathway.

I would like to start by thanking you and the students of Broadoak for making me feel so welcome since joining the school at the beginning of Term 3. It is always a challenge when the academic year has already started, so thank you.

Why is attendance important?

There are a number of reasons that I could state as to why attendance is important:

The school legally reports daily what the attendance figure is. The government target is 96%.
Attainment is linked to attendance – “Missing out on lessons leaves children vulnerable to falling behind. Children with poor attendance tend to achieve less in secondary school” (Gov guidance May 2022)
The government expects parents/carers to perform their legal duty by ensuring their children of compulsory school age who are registered at school to attend regularly. (Gov guidance May 2022)
Parents/Carers have a legal responsibility to ensure that their child is punctual to their lessons (Gov guidance May 2022)
Prepares students for the next step on education pathway / workforce.
Life Skills / Time Keeping / Independence – catching public transport, being on time for a job, appointment or for a club / team.

At Broadoak, we do not rest on meeting potential, we maximize potential and look beyond it because we care that every student moves onto the next stage of their journey with the confidence to succeed.

This means that as a school community we will be relentless in supporting every student to have the highest possible attendance.

In line with this please let me outline our approach and expectation as of March 2023:

8am – The school site is open for breakfast, all students are welcome
8.30am – All students should be arriving onto site
8.45am – All students in tutor group for registration – the register is a legal document
9.05am- 3pm – Lessons are active, students need to be on time for all lessons

Attendance on Classcharts

Parents/Carers have had the details of Classcharts, the online platform (mobile app) that supports the communication between home, student and school.

Classcharts will be used to log positive / negative behaviours. Parents/Carers can see live updates through the Classcharts app (please contact your child’s tutor if you require the access code resent).

All positive attendance choices will be rewarded.

Attendance sanctions will be given for the following:

5 x late to lesson / tutor = automatically generates an afterschool detention
Truancy from lesson, student is on site but choosing not to go to lesson
Truancy off-site – student walks out of school without permission

On Classcharts, all positive rewards are green, sanctions are red; the target for each student’s “pizza” is to be as green as possible.

The school monitors attendance daily, and lesson by lesson. Where there is a drop, this could trigger several different interventions, strategies and support. This could include letters, meetings, attendance contracts, home visits, support plans, involvement of external agencies or a fine (FPN – Fixed Penalty Notice).

All students and parents should know their child’s attendance.

We appreciate that illness occurs, however we would encourage you to support us by building your child’s resilience and to only keep them at home if necessary. Reasonable adjustments of support can be applied to continue your child’s learning once they return to school. We have qualified first aid trained staff on site. If your child feels ill, they need to go to the office to be assessed. If the school makes the decision that your child needs to go home, we will contact you to arrange collection. Students are NOT to contact home themselves as this can cause several issues in addition to the fact that your child should not be using their phone during the school day.

We are here to support all Broadoak students to maximize their potential and we would like to work with all families to ensure that we can achieve this.

The attached sheet is an interesting document that summarises the impact of attendance on attainment. Please take the time to read it and talk it through with your child / children.

Thank you for your support on raising the aspirations of all the students at Broadoak. If you would like to discuss your child’s attendance, please contact their tutor in the first instant.

Kind regards,

Mrs L De-Long

Associate Assistant Principal for Attendance