Attendance
Registers are important legal documents and must be kept accurately. You must be in your classroom for 8.40am. If you arrive late at school for any reason you must sign in at reception before going to the correct lesson.
Absence through illness
If you feel really ill in the morning, please do not come to school.
If you are ill, your parent/carer must contact the school by 9:30am on the first day of your absence (stating your name, your tutor group and a brief reason for your absence); by telephoning 01303 251125 (option 1) or by emailing attendance@folkestonegirls.kent.sch.uk
A telephone call is expected each day a student is absent unless previously advised.
For absences that extend to a week (5 school days) or more, some form of medical evidence is required; this can be in the form of a Doctor’s/walk-in-centre note, copy of a prescription or sight of prescribed medication.
If we have not received notification we will contact your parent/carer to find out why you have not registered at school.
If we are not informed of your absence it has to be recorded as truancy and this will be investigated further.
When you return to school it is important that you talk to your teachers to find out about the work you missed and what you need to do to catch up.
Going out of School for Appointments
Please email your SDL and attendance@folkestonegirls.kent.sch.uk prior to the appointment date, giving the details of your appointment so that a note can be put onto the class register notifying the subject teacher who will then release you from lessons at the correct time.
Before leaving the site, report to Reception and sign out.
If you come back to school after your appointment, you must sign in at Reception and then go straight to your lesson.
It is expected that, whenever possible, appointments will be made out of school hours
Leave of Absence
If you know that you are going to have to miss school for any reason, please email your SDL giving full details and as much notice as possible.
However, please note that GCSE assignments and public examinations are set in school time and must not be missed under any circumstances.
Students will only be given permission for authorised absence from school in exceptional circumstances. Permission for family holidays during term time cannot be granted and if taken, will be recorded as unauthorised absence. The school will request that fixed penalty notices are issued in the case of unauthorised absence and these may result in a fine. If your parent/carer wishes to take you out of school for any reason other than a medical appointment, they must request permission from the Assistant Principal.
It should be noted that we are required to report all students with attendance below 85% and/or whose attendance is of concern to the schools Liaison Officer, regardless of the circumstances. We are also required to refer students with attendance below 85% to the SLO if they can not provide a medical certificate to support their absence for a current medical need.
If you are unwell at school
If you feel ill in a lesson you should inform the teacher who will send you to the SDL Office if they think you may need to go home.
Your SDL will decide whether arrangements need to be made for you to go home.
We cannot allow you to leave the school premises without authorisation from your parent/carer. The Receptionist or SDL will phone home and ask for someone to come and pick you up. Students must not make their own arrangements for their parents to collect them.
If you have an accident at school or see someone else have an accident, you must report it at once to the nearest adult.
If you have to take prescribed medicine during the school day, please hand this to your SDL or the Admin Office for safe keeping and report for it as necessary. Inhalers should be kept by you and be available at all times. A spare, up to date, inhaler with your name on should be kept in the SDL Office or Admin Office in case of emergencies.
Why is school attendance important?
Attendance matters – and as per our school ethos, it matters for much more than ‘just’ exam results. At FSG, we rate personal development and character education as of equal importance to academic success and we try and make school therefore not just about Maths, English, Geography and all the rest….
School is just as importantly about being a part of something, being surrounded by friends; learning new things, doing new things; experiencing new things; at FSG its about a whole host of other opportunities like DoE, CCF, mountain biking, archery, climbing……… missing school is missing out on all of that – friends, opportunities, fun, belonging! School is a big, big part of a normal childhood experience; a shared experience. Without school that network of friends around us starts to diminish; Saturdays, Sundays and school holidays are just as impacted as friends fall by the wayside. We just can’t add to the conversation! We weren’t there to see Mr Smith in the school play; we weren’t there that day in History when we had to rap about Henry VIII and his six wives; we weren’t there on the field trip; we didn’t see what happened on sports day! We weren’t there to see this or hear that! Missing school is missing out!
There is, naturally, also a huge impact on attainment and achievement. Those who take an occasional day (or a week, or a fortnight) off school miss building blocks of knowledge. Catching up is a treadmill that becomes unmanageable, stressful and so their learning is fractured. Nationally, over 75% of students with good school attendance achieve a pass grade in GCSE English and Maths. That drops to just 35% of students who were persistently absent (≤ 90% attendance) and just 11% of students with severe absenteeism (≤ 50% attendance). So very, very clearly missing school is missing out on realising your potential!
Attendance impacts academic results, personal development, friendships, mental health, resilience……… It impacts on your childhood and will impact on your adulthood.
90% attendance is good, right?
Whilst 90% in a test or exam would be a real achievement for most of us; a result that we’d happily shout from the rooftops, 90% attendance is not so positive. It equates to 1 day off a fortnight, 19 days in a school year (or almost 4 working weeks, a whole month) - over the academic year. Employers would not accept that and as part of our role, as a school and as parents, is to prepare our young people for their working adult lives, attendance is something we must all work together on to improve. So, whilst of course we all get sick from time to time, we also need to, perhaps, just be that little bit more resilient and struggle on in when we are just a little under the weather.
All schools of course are also bound by the Department of Education to monitor and report on the attendance of all students. When a student’s attendance drops below 90% they are defined as a ‘persistent absentee’ and we are required to request medical evidence to support further ill health absence. Before covid we’d have had a handful of students with attendance below 90%. Last year a quarter of all students hit that threshold!
Within this, just as we do for punctuality, we look beyond the headline figures. So, 90% attendance in a year could be a result of 4 consecutive weeks off – for tonsilitis for example. Or it could represent 1 day off every week for 20 weeks. Those patterns of attendance within that headline figure then can be very different – with the second example painting a worrying picture.
How good is your daughter’s attendance?
The Trustees, Principal and staff, in partnership with parents and students, have a duty to promote full attendance at FSG. We judge attendance as follows:
- An attendance level of above 98% is considered 'Outstanding'. An attendance level between 96% and 98% is considered 'Good'.
- An attendance level between 91% and 95% is considered to 'Require Improvement'.
- An attendance level below 90% is considered 'Inadequate'
Acknowledging that we all get ill from time to time, we actively promote ‘outstanding’ attendance for all our students and we use a variety of termly and annual awards to promote good attendance and punctuality.
What do I do if I’m struggling to get my child to school?
The first thing to say is that you are not alone! Nationally the figures are truly harrowing. Many children are missing out on a normal childhood experience, such is there physical or mental health that they are unable to attend despite the support of home and school. It’s all too easy to blame parents for failing to get their child to school but the reality is that many parents struggle despite their best efforts and intentions so it’s important to state that there is no judgement from us. We simply want to work with you to support a re-integration somehow, sometime in the future and so the importance of keeping in touch is paramount.
As in all things though prevention is better than cure and so as tempting as it is to permit a day off when you child seems anxious about attending, this can easily become two, three etc and once a child is not attending it is undoubtedly much harder to get them back to school. So, just as we will look at attendance in the early years of school to spot potential problems arising we ask that parents do the same and alert us as soon as possible when their child begins to struggle or express that they don’t want to attend.
There are some useful resources online to support families;
https://www.youngminds.org.uk/parent/parents-a-z-mental-health-guide/school-anxiety-and-refusal/
Punctuality
What happens if your daughter is late for school and lessons?
- She misses the beginning of the lesson.
- She doesn’t know what to do.
- She stops others listening and learning to ask them what to do.
- She may have to disturb others to get to her seat.
- The teacher may be in the middle of giving instructions which she/he then has to waste time repeating.
- She may find it difficult to catch up.
What should you as parents do?
- Ensure that your daughter attends school regularly and arrives punctually
- Book medical appointments outside school hours whenever possible
- Plan holidays in the 175 non-school days each year
- Celebrate special occasions after school, at weekends and during the holidays
- Go late-night shopping or at weekends, not during the school day
- If your daughter is unavoidably absent, ensure that she talks to her teachers about catching up with her learning
Penalty Notices that are levied per parent per child may now be issued to parents for:
- Student truancy
- 10 sessions (five days) of unauthorised absence across 2 terms
- Holidays in term time
- Delayed return from extended holidays
- Persistent lateness after the register has closed