Regular and punctual attendance is key to ensuring your child is able to make the most of the opportunities available at school.

Attendance

When it is necessary for children to be absent from school, parents are asked to telephone school to let us know and explain the reason for the absence.

In terms of safeguarding, if we are not informed of the absence by 9.30am,

we will text to ask you the reason why, and if necessary we will ring the child’s home.

If we still have no contact from you, the Attendance Officer will try to visit your home and the child will be marked with an unauthorised absence. If your child is absent for more than three days please ring school with an update. The Head Teacher should be notified as soon as possible in the case of prolonged or serious illness or accident.

Instructions from the Department for Education state that an absence is unauthorised if the school is not notified of the reason for it or if the school does not grant permission for the absence. Unauthorised absences are recorded on the child’s report.  

We use a Traffic Light system to identify pupils’ attendance and discuss individual cases on a weekly basis. Where children have sound reasons for absence, there is no intervention. However, where children are beginning to fall into unacceptable patterns of attendance, we refer to our Family Support Worker or Attendance Officer.  

The Attendance Officer will visit the parents if we have concerns over attendance. We expect all children to arrive on time for school (8.55am) except in exceptional circumstances, and therefore set a 99% punctuality target.  

If your child has any kind of medical appointment, please let us know in advance, as it can be marked as an authorised absence. Please be aware that medical appointments will effect your child’s overall attendance. A form should be completed at least 24 hours prior to the appointment. 

Absence during term-time has the potential to interrupt continuity of teaching and learning, as well as disrupt the educational progress of individual children. Kingston Park Primary School aims to minimise the amount of time lost to term time absence which actively discourages parents from arranging periods of absence during term time unless in exceptional circumstances. The Head Teacher will be consistent in making robust and informed decisions with regard to the authorising/non-authorising of leave of absence to ensure that parents develop a consistent understanding of the response which they might expect. The Headteacher will decide what might constitute “exceptional circumstances”. Such circumstances might include the following: 

• A parent/grandparent or other close relative is seriously/terminally ill; 
• There has recently been a death or significant other trauma in the family and it is felt that an immediate period of absence might help the child concerned better deal with the situation.

Holidays

Please note that holidays taken during term time, without the prior permission from school or not in exceptional circumstances, could result in legal sanctions for irregular attendance being taken. School are able to request the Local Authority to issue a Fixed Penalty Notice under Section 444 of the Education Act 1996 (a £60 fine payable within 21 days or £120 within 28 days) to each parent who fails to ensure their children’s regular attendance at school.

Star Trophies 

Every half term Kingston Park along with the 7 other schools in our Trust (Stocksfield Avenue, Kenton Bar, Mountfield, Farne, Cheviot, Wyndham and North Fawdon) compete to be awarded a Star Trophy. The Star Trophies are awarded to each year group from Reception up to Year 6 for the school that has the best overall attendance across all the Trust schools. The aim of the Star Trophies is to promote good attendance within school and encourage children to strive to attend school daily. The Star Trophies were kindly donated by Ian Clennell, from Clennell Education Solutions.

Previous Star Trophy Winners

Autumn Term 1                                      Autumn Term 2                                 

Reception ~ Stocksfield ~ 96.3%              Reception ~ Stocksfield ~ 95.7%

Year 1 ~ North Fawdon ~ 98.8%               Year 1 ~ Mountfield ~ 97.5%

Year 2 ~ Kingston Park ~ 97.9%               Year 2 ~ Kingston Park ~ 97.1%

Year 3 ~ Kingston Park ~ 97.2%               Year 3 ~ Cheviot ~ 98.2%

Year 4 ~ Cheviot ~ 98.3%                         Year 4 ~ Kingston Park ~ 97.5%

Year 5~ Cheviot ~ 98.6%                          Year 5 ~ Mountfield ~ 97.5%

Year 6 ~ Stocksfield ~ 97.9%                    Year 6 ~ Kingston Park ~ 97.6%

Spring Term 1                                                                Spring Term 2

Reception ~ Stocksfield ~ 97.0%             Reception ~ Mountfield ~ 97.5%

Year 1 ~ Kingston Park ~ 97.0%              Year 1 ~ Kingston Park ~ 96.5%

Year 2 ~ Kingston Park ~ 96.6%              Year 2 ~ Farne ~ 97.9%

Year 3 ~ Wyndham ~ 98.2%                    Year 3 ~ Cheviot ~ 98.7%

Year 4 ~ Farne ~ 97.4%                           Year 4 ~ Kingston Park and Farne ~ 98.6%

Year 5 ~ Kingston Park ~ 98.2%              Year 5 ~ Cheviot ~ 98.4%

Year 6 ~ Kingston Park ~ 97.1%              Year 6 ~ Mountfield and Wyndham ~ 98.1%

Summer Term 1                                     Summer Term 2

Reception ~ Stocksfield ~ 97.2%             Reception ~

Year 1 ~ North Fawdon ~ 97.7%             Year 1 ~

Year 2 ~ Stocksfield ~ 98.4%                  Year 2 ~

Year 3 ~ North Fawdon ~ 98.2%             Year 3 ~

Year 4 ~ Kingston Park ~ 98.6%             Year 4 ~        

Year 5 ~ Cheviot ~ 99.6%                       Year 5 ~

Year 6 ~ Stocksfield ~ 98.2%                  Year 6 ~

Famous Faces

At the beginning of the new half term, all Trust schools have their own assembly focusing on attendance and announce the winners of the Star Trophies using the same presentation. Each term in the presentation a famous or well known person provides a video of themselves talking about how important attendance is and links good attendance to their current job. 

We have previous had athletes, authors and politicians. Have a look below at their videos. 

If anyone knows any famous or well known individual or group and would be able to get a short video of them talking about attendance please contact us! 

Postcards

Each half term attendance postcards will be sent home showing your child's attendance for the entire half term. There are 5 different postcards your child can receive:

Gold

The gold postcard is for children who have achieved 100% attendance for the half term. This means that your child was in school every day!

Green

The green postcard is for children who had attendance of 96% or above for the half term. This means your child only missed a couple of days at school or even just a morning or afternoon. 

Amber

The amber postcard is for children who had attendance of between 91% and 95% attendance. This means your children missed several days of school during the half term.

Red

The red postcard is for children who had attendance of below 90%. This means your child missed a significant amount of days from school and have missed out on crucial learning.

Blue

The blue postcard is for children who have missed numerous days of school due to a medical condition or for children with Special Educational Needs who can't regularly attend school. The blue postcard encourages children to keep trying their best to attend school wherever possible. 

Weekly Attendance Certificates 

Each week the class with the highest attendance for the preceding week will receive a certificate which will be displayed in the class area. These will be awarded in assembly every two weeks. Attendance assemblies are also held regularly throughout the half term to update children on how their attendance is.