St Catherine's School
ATTENDANCE POLICY AND PROCEDURE

Reviewed by:	Senior Deputy Head
Last Reviewed:	October 2024
Next Review:	October 2025

SCHOOL MISSION We are inspired by St Catherine of Siena, who said ‘Be who God wants you to be, and you will set the world on fire’, to form young women of confidence and compassion, ready for service and leadership in the world. We fulfil our mission through these values:   Community: a place of cheerfulness, dignity and tolerance, where all are welcome Faith: a Christ-centred school with time for reflection; a culture of gratitude and friendship Courage: with self-knowledge, resilience and integrity, and a readiness for challenge Scholarship: where gifts are developed through curiosity, imagination and ambition Service: commitment to others, to stewardship, and to justice and hope for all

Introduction

St Catherine’s School knows that regular school attendance is essential for pupils’ academic progress, personal development, and overall wellbeing. This policy outlines our commitment to maintaining high levels of attendance and our commitment to working in partnership with parents to support high levels of attendance. We aim to:

• promote good attendance;

• reduce absence, including persistent and severe absence;

• to ensure, so far as possible, that every pupil in the school is able to benefit from and make their full contribution to the life of the school.

• ensure every pupil has access to the full-time education to which they are entitled;

• act early to address patterns of absence;

• build strong relationships with families to ensure pupils have the support in place to attend school;

• share information and work collaboratively with other schools, local authorities and other partners, where a pupil’s absence is at risk of becoming persistent or severe; and

• be particularly mindful of pupils absent from school due to mental or physical ill health or their special educational needs and/or disabilities and provide them with additional support.

Regulatory framework

This policy has been prepared to meet the School's responsibilities under: 

• Education (Independent School Standards) Regulations 2014; 

• Education and Skills Act 2008;

• The School Attendance (Pupil Registration) (England) Regulations 2024;

• Equality Act 2010; and

• Data Protection Act 2018 and UK General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR)

This Policy has regard to the following guidance and advice:

• Working together to improve school attendance (DfE, applies from 19 August 2024);
• Summary table of responsibilities for school attendance (DfE, applies from 19 August 2024);
• Toolkit for schools: communicating with families to support attendance (DfE, September 2023);
• Guidance for parents on school attendance (Office of the Children's Commissioner, September 2023);
• 'Is my child too ill for school?' guidance (NHS, April 2024);
• Keeping children safe in education (DfE, September 2024);
• School behaviour and attendance: parental responsibility measures (DfE, May 2020); 
• Children missing education (DfE, September 2016);
• Supporting pupils with medical conditions at school (DfE, August 2017);
• Behaviour in schools: advice for headteachers and school staff (DfE,  February 2024);
• Mental health and behaviour in schools (DfE, November 2018);
• Mental health issues affecting a pupil's attendance: guidance for schools (DfE, February 2023);
• Support for pupils where a mental health issue is affecting attendance (DfE, February 2023); and
• Remote education guidance (DfE, updated February 2023).

Key Definitions 

References to a Parent means: 

• all natural parents, whether they are married or not;

• any person who has parental responsibility for a pupil; and

• any person who has day to day responsibility for a pupil (i.e. lives with and looks after a pupil). 

References to a pupil includes anyone who is receiving an education at the school except a person who is 19 or over for whom further education is being provided, or a person for whom part-time education suitable for people over compulsory school age is being provided.

‘Working together to improve school attendance’ expects the School to have a ‘Senior Attendance Champion’ (SAC) – this has been assigned to the Senior Deputy Head. Contact details for the SAC are as follow:

Name: Mrs Allison Saunders
Email: asaunders@stcatherineschool.co.uk

The importance of good attendance

The School recognises the importance of developing good patterns of attendance from the outset.  This is an integral part of the School's ethos and culture.  In building a culture of good school attendance it recognises:

• the importance of good attendance, alongside good behaviour, as a central part of the school's vision, values, ethos, and day to day life;

• the interplay between attendance and wider school improvement efforts, building it into strategies on attainment, behaviour management, special educational needs support, supporting pupils with medical conditions and / or disabilities, mental health issues, safeguarding wellbeing, and support for disadvantaged pupils;

• the importance of setting high expectations for the attendance and punctuality of all pupils and communicating these regularly and effectively to pupils and parents; 

• that attendance is never "solved" and is a continuous process requiring revision and updating of messages, processes and strategies; and

• children missing education can act as a vital warning sign to a range of safeguarding issues, including neglect, sexual abuse and child sexual and criminal exploitation.

School Responsibilities

The School acknowledges that attendance is the essential foundation to securing positive outcomes for all pupils and that everyone has a responsibility to take proactive steps to manage and improve attendance across the School community. 

The School will consistently promote the benefits of good attendance, setting high expectations for every pupil and consistently communicating those expectations to pupils and parents.

Where there are challenges to attendance, the School will work effectively and respectfully with pupils, their families and, where appropriate, local authorities to address them. 

The School will respond to non-attendance and/or lateness proactively, firmly, consistently and with care, with appropriate reference to this policy, its safeguarding and behaviour policies and the School's terms and conditions.  It will act in a proportionate and targeted way in response to data or intelligence and ensure intervention is regularly reviewed.

The School will have robust systems in place to track and record attendance, reasons for absence and patterns at an individual level and by cohorts or groups in order to identify pupils at risk of non-attendance and those who are persistently absent and it will monitor and analyse this data regularly to facilitate early intervention to address issues

Roles and Responsibilities

Parents 

The law entitles every child of compulsory school age to an efficient, full-time education suitable to their age, aptitude and any special educational need they may have.  It is the legal responsibility of every parent to make sure their child receives that education.

This means pupils must attend every day that the School is open, except in a small number of allowable circumstances such as being too ill to attend or being given permission for an absence in advance from the School.

The School will help parents to understand what is expected of them and why attendance is important to their child's attainment, wellbeing, and wider development and provide clarity on the short and long term consequences of poor attendance.

Parents are bound by the terms relating to conduct and attendance in the parent contract and failure to ensure a child's attendance or engage with the School about it could amount to a breach of contract or a finding that the parent is treating the School unreasonably.

Parents play a crucial role in ensuring their child’s regular attendance and are expected to:

• keep their child’s absences to a minimum; 

• where possible ensure their child attends every day and arrives on time for registration at 8.30am;

• communicate with the School to report their child’s absence before 8.30am on each day of absence;

• provide the School with more than one emergency contact number for their child; and

• ensure that, where possible, medical and other appointments for their child are made outside of school hours. 

Expectations the School places on parents can be found in Appendix 1 of this policy.

Pupils 

School attendance is important to pupil attainment, wellbeing and development. The School therefore has high expectations of pupils as to their attendance and has systems in place to reward good attendance and manage poor attendance

Pupils are expected to: 

• attend morning and afternoon registration and every timetabled session on time;

• inform their teachers by email in advance of the lesson if they are going to be absent from all or part of the lesson for any reason other than illness (e.g. music lesson);

• sign out/in as appropriate at reception if attending school for only part of any day;

• only go home during the school day because of illness as advised by the Reception Team (who provide medical care to pupils) or SMT.

• only go home, for any other reason as advised by a member of SMT.

• ensure they do not contact home themselves to arrange to leave school early;

• understand that any unexplained absence will be followed up; and

• understand that persistent lateness of non-attendance will result in action being taken by the School and may take the form of an offer of support, communication with parents, reporting to external agencies or sanctions in line with the School’s Policies.

If pupils are having difficulties that might discourage or prevent them from attending School or specific lessons regularly, they may speak to any member of staff, although the School encourages them to speak to their Form Tutor, Head of Section or a member of SMT. Pupils are entitled to expect this information to be managed sensitively.

Board of Governors

The Board of Governors have overall responsibility for all matters which are subject of this policy. They recognise that improving attendance is a school leadership issue and have allocated this to the Senior Deputy Head who will be the designated senior leader to have overall responsibility for championing and improving attendance. The Senior Deputy Head will report to the Board of Governors annually.

Senior Deputy Head

The senior member of staff with overall responsibility is the Senior Deputy Head who is responsible for:

• promoting the importance of pupil attendance and punctuality across the School;

• establishing and maintaining an oversight and monitoring of attendance and punctuality data;

• keeping the policy up to date and compliant;

• monitoring the implementation of the policy;

• ensuring appropriate communication with pupils and parents takes place regarding attendance and/or punctuality issues;

• seeking input from interested groups to consider improvements annually;

• overseeing the delivery of targeted interventions and support for pupils and families; and 

• reporting an overview to the Board of Governors annually.

Deputy Head Pastoral and Heads of Section 

Pastoral leaders are expected to support the Senior Deputy Head in fulfilling the responsibilities listed above and are specifically responsible for: 

• promoting and analysing pupil attendance and punctuality issues within their year groups;

• discussions with pupils and families to try to remove any barriers to attendance and/or punctuality; and

• Delivering targeted interventions in line with the School’s Safeguarding Policy.

All staff

Expectations placed on staff can be found in Appendices 1 - 3 of this policy. Any member of staff taking a register has a responsibility for doing so accurately and promptly and should:

• ensure the correct codes are being used (codes available on iSAMS);

• understand that the register is a legal document and accuracy is very important; 

• ensure that registers are never left blank (if the reason for an absence is unknown the code ‘N’ is temporarily used); and

• all ‘N’ marks must be changed to another code within 5 school days otherwise they will be changed by the data manager to ‘unauthorised absence’ after 5 school days which will then be reported home on a termly basis.

Form Tutors have the overall responsibility for:

• monitoring and promoting good attendance and punctuality;

• have a formal routine for registers being taken accurately each morning and afternoon;

• seek explanations of absences required from pupils on their return to School;

• make enquiries about unexplained absences, including those within the school day, and follow up with pupils to ensure that an explanation has been formally given to the School;

• look out for trends or patterns in a pupil's attendance and inform their Head of Section of any specific concerns;

• deal with lateness to lessons consistently and promptly;

• consider appropriate sanctions for pupils who arrive late to a lesson in line with the School’s behaviour and discipline policies; and

• discuss non-attendance and/or lateness with pupils and parents (where possible) and emphasise the importance of punctuality and attendance.  

MIS and Data Manager/Assistant

These members of the school staff is responsible for: 

• providing regular attendance reports and reporting concerns about attendance to the Deputy Head Pastoral and the Senior Deputy; and

• working with pastoral staff, including the Heads of Section and Form Tutors to ensure registers are accurate and correct.

Reception 

The School Receptionists will work alongside the pastoral staff and the Data Manager/Assistant to monitor absence on a day-to-day basis and record reasons for absence on the school system. This includes: 

• monitoring calls and/or emails from parents; 

• checking for telephone messages from parents;

• liaising with pastoral leads when valid reasons for absence are unclear; and 

• should there be a question about the whereabouts of any pupil marked absent (i.e. no telephone message received from the parent giving a reason for the absence), communicating with parents when a pupil arrives late or is unexpectedly absent from school.

Admissions Manager

The Admissions Manager is expected to: 

• Notify the local authority of additions to the pupil roll during non-standard transition points. 

• Notify the local authority of deletions from the pupil roll during non-standard transition points.

Monitoring Attendance

The School will undertake regular data analysis to identify and provide additional support to pupils or pupil cohorts that need it, and to look at historic and emerging patterns across the School and develop strategies to address them. Such analysis may include:

• monitoring and analysing weekly attendance patterns and trends and provide support in a targeted way to pupils and families;

• using this analysis to provide regular attendance reports to pastoral staff to facilitate discussions with pupils and to leaders (including the SENCo and members of the Safeguarding Team);

• conducting thorough analysis of termly and full year data to identify patterns and trends;

• benchmarking attendance data at whole school, year group and cohort level to identify areas of focus for improvement;

• devising specific strategies to address areas of poor attendance identified through data;

• monitoring the impact of school-wide attendance efforts, including any specific strategies implemented; and

• providing data and reports to the Board of Governors to support its work.

Training

The School ensures that regular guidance and training on attendance is arranged on induction and at regular intervals thereafter so that staff and volunteers understand what is expected of them by this policy and have the necessary knowledge and skills to carry out their roles.

Record keeping and confidentiality

All records created in accordance with this policy are managed in accordance with the School's policies that apply to the retention and destruction of records.

The information created in connection with this policy may contain personal data.  The School's use of this personal data will be in accordance with data protection law.  

The School has published privacy notices on its website which explain how the School will use personal data and which directs queries to the Data Protection Manager via the data protection email address.

Additional needs

The School recognises some pupils may find it harder than others to attend School, and will work with those pupils and parents to try to remove barriers to attendance by building strong and trusting relationships and working together to put the right support in place.

The School will make reasonable adjustments where a pupil has a disability or additional needs that poses additional challenges for the pupil in relation to attendance. 

It will also work with parents, and where appropriate with the local authority, to develop specific support approaches for attendance for pupils with special educational needs and disabilities e.g. ensuring the provision outlined in a pupil’s Education, Health and Care Plan is accessed.¹

Suitable strategies will also be considered for pupils with any social, emotional or mental health issue that is affecting their attendance.²

Where barriers are outside of the School's control, the School will work with parents and pupils to identify alternative sources of support or consider, where appropriate, making a referral for early help.

The School will make a sickness return to the local authority if a pupil is recorded in the attendance register as absent using the national absence code I (unable to attend because of sickness) and there are reasonable grounds to believe that the pupil will have to miss 15 consecutive school days or more for illness or the pupil's total number of school days missed during the current school year because of illness (whether consecutive or cumulative) will reach or exceed 15 school days.³

Information sharing

Personal information on attendance will only be shared in line with legal obligations and having regard to government guidance on attendance, safeguarding and children missing education.

The School, local authorities and other local partners should work jointly and share data on individual cases where it is of benefit to a pupil (e.g. health services where there are medical conditions or the police where there are extra-familiar harms).

Where appropriate the school will attend regular targeting support meetings.⁴

The School is legally required to share information from the registers with the local authority. As a minimum this includes:

• New pupil and deletion returns;

• Attendance returns⁵;

• Sickness returns.

¹ The Mental health issues affecting a pupil's attendance: guidance for schools states in the non-statutory summary of responsibilities document that 'in many cases the school may be able to agree with parents / carers adjustments to its policies and practices that are consistent with the special educational provision set out in the EHC plan. In other cases, additional or different attendance support identified may require the LA to review or amend an EHC plan.' 

² See Mental health issues affecting a pupil's attendance: guidance for schools which includes a Summary of responsibilities where a mental health issue is affecting attendance and Support for pupils where mental health is affecting attendance: effective practice examples.

³ See paragraph 57 of the statutory guidance Working together to improve school attendance: applies from 19 August 2024.

⁴ Targeting support meetings are meetings local authorities have with schools to discuss attendance data and identify pupils and cohorts at risk of poor attendance and agree targeted actions and access to services for those pupils. See chapter 4 of the statutory guidance Working together to improve school attendance: applies from 19 August 2024.

⁵ Schools are required to provide attendance returns to the local authority with the names and addresses of all pupils of compulsory school age who fail to attend school regularly or have been recorded as absent for a continuous period of ten school days where their absence has been recorded with one or more of the national attendance codes (G, N, O, and/or U). Individual local authorities must agree the frequency that attendance returns are to be provided with all schools in their area. This should be no less frequently than once per calendar month - see chapter 2 and content on sharing information in the statutory guidance Working together to improve school attendance: applies from 19 August 2024.

The law allows local authority officers access to the attendance and admission registers of all types of schools to carry out their functions under the Education Acts to support joint working between schools and local authorities. These officers are also permitted to take digital or physical extracts of the School's registers.

The School must provide specific pupil information on request to the Secretary of State.

Where appropriate, the School is expected to inform a pupil's social worker and/or youth offending team worker if there are unexplained absences. 

Appendix 1 School Arrangements

Managing attendance

The School monitors, records and shares data about pupil attendance as part of its duty to safeguard and protect pupils and promote attendance. It accurately completes admission and attendance registers as required by law and set out in Appendix 2 and Appendix 3 respectively. The admission and attendance registers are kept electronically and retained by the School for the relevant time period as stated by law.

The School expects all pupils to be present at School for the whole of the School day, usually from registration at 8.30am until the end of the day at 3.45pm, but this period may be extended, for example for out of school clubs, sports fixtures or school trips.

The role of parents

The School expects all parents to:

• make any application for an authorised leave of absence at the earliest opportunity;

• notify the School of any absence or delay as soon as reasonably possible in accordance with this policy and when doing so, give an accurate explanation for this; and

• cooperate with the School to explore possible barriers to attendance and to improve it where attendance has been raised as an issue.

Parents should ensure their child attends School by 8.30am for morning registration; 

Registration and attendance checks

Morning registration is at 8.30am. The registers will remain open for 5 minutes after the start of morning registration. 

Afternoon registration will be at 2.05pm and will remain open for 5 minutes.

The School uses electronic registers held in iSAMS.

Reporting absence

If a pupil is to be absent from School for any reason (i.e. illness or unforeseen events), the parent should telephone the Reception Office on the morning of the first day and subsequent days of absence, preferably before 8.30am.  

Parents should also email their child’s Tutor to inform them of the absence. 

Authorised absences

Authorised absence means that the School has either given approval in advance for a pupil to be away (granted an authorised leave of absence) or has accepted an explanation offered afterwards as justification for absence.

Applications for an authorised leave of absence

Requests for an authorised leaves of absence during the School day will only be granted in exceptional circumstances. The request must be sent, together with an explanation of the reason for it, to the Headmistress via My School Portal.

The School will consider each application for an authorised leave of absence individually, taking into account the specific facts and circumstances, the pupil's past attendance record and the relevant background context behind the request.

Apart from illness, no pupil should be away from School without prior permission from the Headmistress.

Dental or medical appointments should, wherever possible be made so as not to conflict with the school day. The school recognises this can be difficult; our agreement to absences for such reasons should be submitted via MSP at the earliest opportunity.

If a leave of absence is granted, it is for the Headmaster to determine the length of the time the pupil is permitted to be away from School.  It will be recorded as an authorised absence. See section 3 of Appendix 3 for more details.

A leave of absence will usually be authorised for religious observance if the day concerned is exclusively set apart for religious observance by the religious body to which parents and pupils belong.  Parents are expected to make a request for this type of leave of absence in advance.

Managing absence

Where absence escalates and pupils miss 10% or more of School, the School will work with the local authority to put together additional targeted support in place to remove any barriers to attendance and re-engage these pupils. In order to do so the School will sensitively consider some of the reasons for absences and understand the importance of School as a place of safety and support rather than immediately taking punitive approaches.

Particular focus will be on pupils who are absent from School more than they are present (i.e. missing 50% or more of school). All partners should work together to make these pupils a priority.

Steps taken to include the following:

• The Data Manager/Assistant to provide a ‘Pastoral Concerns Summary’ each week during term time to the Senior Deputy Head, Pastoral Deputy and Heads of Section to include unauthorised absences, days off ill and lateness (both for that week and the current year total);

• The Data Manager/Assistant to provide the attendance data, for those with less than 90% attendance, to the  at the end of each half term and term;

• The Deputy Head Pastoral to discuss data with Heads of Section in regular meetings throughout the term;

• An email to parents with children whose attendance is under 90% (with or without mitigating circumstances) so all parents are aware their child’s attendance rate is below the guidance set;

• Support to the family in order to help their child’s attendance improve;

• A letter outlining next steps (this could include weekly check-ins);

• A weekly check in with the appropriate Head of Section. 

Reporting duties

The School has statutory reporting obligations if a pupil fails to regularly attend and their absence is unauthorised. The School must report unauthorised absences for a continuous period of 10 days or more to the local authority.

The School must report if a pupil has been recorded with illness and who the school has reasonable grounds to believe will miss 15 days consecutively or cumulatively because of sickness to the local authority.

Each time the School's attendance register is completed (i.e. each morning and each afternoon) it is treated as a contact point for these purposes.

Action will also be taken in accordance with the Safeguarding Policy if any absence of a pupil from the School gives rise to a concern about their welfare.

The School is required to work with the local authority if a child is placed on a part time or reduced timetable and that child has an Education, Health and Care plan or has a social worker. 

A child should only be placed on such a timetable for the shortest time necessary and not be treated as a long-term solution. There should be formal arrangements in place for regular reviews of such a timetable.

Appendix 2 Admission Register

In accordance with the requirements of the School Attendance (Pupil Registration) (England) Regulations 2024 the School will:

• maintain an admission register of all pupils (of both compulsory and non-compulsory school age) admitted to the School (also known as the school roll); and

• inform the local authority of any pupil who is going to be added to or deleted from the School's admission register at non-standard transition points.

The admission register must be kept electronically and a back-up copy of the register is made at least once a month in the form of an electronic or printed copy. 

The School must ensure that every entry in the School's admission register is preserved for six years beginning with the day on which the entry was made; and every back-up copy of the register is preserved for six years after the end of the school year that it relates to. 

The admissions register contains specific personal details of every pupil in the School, including their date of admission, information regarding parents and carers and details of the school they last attended

A pupil's name can only be deleted from the admission register for a reason set out in regulation 9 of the School Attendance (Pupil Registration) (England) Regulations 2024. When any of the situations set out in regulation 9 occurs, the pupil's name must be deleted.⁶ 

Where the School notifies the local authority that the pupil's name is to be deleted from the admission register, the School must provide it with the following information:

• the full name of the pupil;

• the address of the pupil;

• the full name and address of any parent   the pupil normally lives with;

• at least one telephone number of any parent with whom the pupil lives or can be contacted in an emergency;

• the pupil's future address, the full name and address of the parent who the pupil is going to live with, and the date the pupil is expected to start living there, if applicable;

• name of the pupil's other or future school and pupil's start date or expected start date there, if applicable;

• the ground (prescribed in regulation 9) under which the pupil's name is to be deleted from the admission register.

⁶ Schools must refer to regulation 9 of The School Attendance (Pupil Registration) (England) Regulations 2024 for full details of the legal grounds for deleting a pupil from the registers. See also chapter 7 of the statutory guidance Working together to improve school attendance: applies from 19 August 2024.

Appendix 3 Attendance register

The School records and monitors the attendance of all pupils (both of compulsory and non-compulsory school age) in accordance with the School Attendance (Pupil Registration) (England) (Regulations) 2024

The School uses the appropriate national attendance and absence codes system to enable it to record and monitor attendance and absence in a consistent way which complies with regulation 10 of the Attendance Regulations.

The attendance register is kept electronically and a back-up copy of the register is made at least once a month in the form of an electronic or printed copy.

The School will also use these records to identify patterns of poor attendance (at individual and cohort level) and work with pupils and parents to resolve any issues before they become entrenched.

The School is required by law to take attendance registers twice daily - once at the start of the morning session and once during the afternoon session.

On each occasion it will be recorded whether every pupil is:

• physically present in School when the attendance register begins to be taken; or

• absent from the School when the attendance register begins to be taken but attends before the taking of the register has ended; or

• attending a place other than the School; or

• absent.

The circumstances in which a pupil may be recorded as attending a place, other than the School, can include:

• Attending educational provision arranged by a local authority;

• For an educational visit or trip arranged by or on behalf of the school and supervised by a member of school staff;

• Attending a place for an approved educational activity that is a sporting activity;

• Attending an approved educational activity that is work experience provided under arrangements made by the school as part of the pupil's education; 

• Attending a place for any other approved educational activity.

Recording absence

Absence will be recorded in accordance with the national absence codes set out in regulation 10 of the School Attendance (Pupil Registration) (England) (Regulations) 2024 and statutory guidance Working together to improve school attendance relating to:

• leaves of absence;

• other authorised reasons;

• unable to attend school because of unavoidable cause;

• unauthorised absence.⁷

⁷ Schools should refer to regulation 10 of The School Attendance (Pupil Registration) (England) Regulations 2024 to ensure they are correctly recording reasons for absence and the applicable commentary in chapter 8 of the statutory guidance Working together to improve school attendance: applies from 19 August 2024.

Lesson by Lesson Registration

The school also requires teachers to complete an iSAMS register at the start of each lesson. While these registers are not statutory, their completion supports the accuracy of the statutory, session registers and promotes a school culture which recognises that good attendance is the foundation of academic progress and personal development.

Remote Education

The School is required to record all absence from in-person lessons.

The School may, in limited circumstances, provide remote education to enable pupils, who are well enough to learn but unable to attend the School site, to keep pace with their education.

In the limited circumstances when the School decides to use remote education for individual pupils when they are absent, the following will be considered:

• ensuring mutual agreement of remote education by the School, parents or carers, potentially pupils, and if appropriate a relevant medical professional. If the pupil has an Education, Health and Care Plan or has a social worker, the local authority should also be involved in the decision;

• if remote education is being used as part of a plan to reintegrate back to school, putting a formal arrangement in place to review its efficacy regularly, alongside identifying what other support and flexibilities can be put in place to help ease the pupil back to school at the earliest opportunity;

• setting a time limit within which the period of remote education provision should be reviewed, with the aim that the pupil returns to in person education with the required support in place to meet their needs.

Pupils who are absent from School and receiving remote education still need to be recorded as absent using the most appropriate absence code. The School will keep a record of, and monitor pupil's engagement with remote education, but this is not formally tracked in the attendance register. Where appropriate, this information may be used to make plans for a pupil's reintegration back to School.

The School will utilise a digital education platform that will be kept up-to-date and keep pupils safe. Staff will remain trained and confident in its use.

Unauthorised absence

The "unauthorised absence" code will be used when prior permission for absence has not been given and where the School is not satisfied with the explanation given for absence or delayed attendance meaning that the code for ‘unable to attend due to an exceptional circumstance’ is not appropriate.  Examples include:

• holiday has not been authorised by the School or is in excess of the period determined by the Head;

• the reason for absence has not been provided;

• a pupil is absent from school without authorisation; and

• a pupil has arrived in school after registration has closed and without reasonable explanation.