Attendance at School

All pupils should enter the school via their designated playground entrance. Please note our playgrounds are supervised from 8:45am. Only those pupils attending Breakfast Club should enter via the main entrance where they will be registered for Breakfast and admitted to the dining area only.

We strive to achieve a high standard of punctuality. Please assist us in this by ensuring that your child is in their line for the bell ringing at 9.00 a.m.

 

Absences

Attendance must be recorded twice a day, morning and afternoon.

Section 30 of the 1980 Education Act lays a duty on every parent of a child of ‘school age’ to ensure that their child attends school regularly. Parents should inform the school by telephone on the first morning of an absence -before 10am – and provide a reason for the pupil’s absence. The school will contact the pupil’s family, and thereafter other emergency contacts, if no contact is made to provide an explanation for a pupil’s absence.

On return to school parents should provide a note explaining the reasons for absence.

 Regulation 7 of The Education (School and Placing Information) (Scotland) Amendment, etc Regulations 1993 requires each child’s absence from school to be recorded in the school register as authorised: i.e. approved by the authority and unauthorised: i.e. unexplained by the parent (truancy) or temporarily excluded from school.

Schools investigate unexplained absence, and Education Services has the power to write to, interview or prosecute parents, or to refer pupils to the Children’s Reporter, if necessary. Young people of school age may not be able to attend school for a wide range of reasons including illness, accidents or long term medical conditions. In general there will be an automatic referral by the school for education outwith school after 15 days of continuous or 20 working days of intermittent absence, within a single session, for verifiable medical reasons.

 

Emergency Information

Parents should keep the school informed of any changes of address or telephone numbers, both their own and those of the emergency contacts in case of emergency.

 

Family Holidays

The Scottish Government has provided guidance on the management of attendance and absence in Scottish schools in its publication included, Engaged and Involved – part 1: Attendance in Scottish Schools. Every effort should be made to avoid family holidays during term time as this both disrupts the child’s education and reduces learning time. It has been clarified that family holidays should not be recorded as authorised absence, except in exceptional domestic circumstances, where a family needs time together to recover from distress, or where a parent’s employment is of a nature where school-holiday leave cannot be accommodated (e.g. armed services or emergency services). It is for local authorities and schools to judge when these circumstances apply and authorise absence, accordingly. The categorisation of most term-time holidays as unauthorised absence has been a contentious issue for some families, many of whom are concerned at the higher cost of holidays during school holiday periods.

The Scottish Government has no control over the pricing decisions of holiday companies or flight operators. Our main focus is to encourage parents and pupils to recognise the value of learning and the pitfalls of disrupting learning for the pupil, the rest of the class and the teacher. Clearly where an absence occurs with no explanation from the parent, the absence is unauthorised.

 

Special Circumstances

 

We make every effort to maintain a full educational service, but on some occasions circumstances arise which lead to disruption. Schools may be affected by, for example, severe weather, temporary interruption of transport, power failures or difficulties of fuel supply. In such cases we shall do all we can do to let you know about the details of closure or re-opening. We shall keep you in touch by using letters, notices in local shops and community centres, announcements in local Churches, text messages, All Saints website, Twitter, Inverclyde website, announcements in the press and on local radio.