It is essential that your child attends school on time every day.

All children who are between 5 and 18 years old are entitled to a full time education.

School has a statutory duty to keep your child safe which includes knowing where they are if they are not in school. We appreciate that children are sometimes genuinely ill. If your child is going to be absent due to illness, please inform the office by 8:40am on every day of absence.

If you do not contact the office, school will ring you followed by every contact number we hold for your child until we speak to somebody. If your child is absent for two consecutive days and we are unable to contact anybody, we will visit the family home in order to ensure that your child/ children are safe and well. If we are still unable to contact a named contact then we may call 101 in order to seek the police’s assistance in locating the family.

Please note that the Education Welfare Officer may also intervene with cases below 96%.

At Rowena Academy, we recognise the importance of good attendance and punctuality and as a result we reward the children in the following ways:

Punctuality is just as important as attendance because minutes late add up to lost learning time, and this very quickly builds up to missed days! Did you know, being 15 minutes late each day means your child will have missed 2 whole weeks of school during the school year! This has a serious impact on education. Take a look at the poster below to show the impact of missed days and lateness.

If your child’s attendance drops below 96% without good reason, you will receive letter 1 informing you that we are concerned.

If there are further absences, letter 2 will be sent.

Following letter 1 and letter 2, if there is no improvement in your child’s attendance then the following actions may be taken:

We appreciate that some children have unavoidable medical appointments during term time such as speech and language or hospital appointments. All we ask is that you provide a copy of the appointment letter. Although we cannot mark a child present who is attending an unavoidable medical appointment, if these are their only absences, 100% rewards will not be affected. This only applies to unavoidable medical appointments such as those stated above, and not to routine appointments such as dental and opticians which can be made outside of school hours.

There may be times when your child has to miss school because they are ill in which case you should contact the Academy on the first day of absence on 01709 863109.

The Government has implemented legislation stating that no requests for holidays can be authorised.

If you take your child on holiday during term time the Local Authority may issue a Fixed Penalty Notice. 

Holidays during term time will not be authorised and an Education Penalty Notice may be requested from the local authority. If you are planning to remove your child from school to take them on holiday, please complete a Leave of Absence form, available from the office. Please be aware that if you do not complete a Leave of Absence form or inform school that you are taking your child on holiday but school has good reason to believe they are absent due to holiday, then an Education Penalty notice will still be requested.

Under Government legislation, a leave of absence may only be authorised in exceptional circumstances. 

When a parent /carer feels that they have exceptional circumstances for a leave of absence e.g. a bereavement/attending a funeral, and wishes to apply to take their child out of school during term time, they must complete a leave of absence form and submit it to the school at least 4 weeks before the proposed date of leave of absence. If the parent/carer takes the child out of school without this authorisation, this will be considered an unauthorised absence.

Please see the below letter with updated information about fines for missed days at school:

As a parent/carer, you are committing an offence if you fail to make sure your child attends regularly – even if they are missing school without your knowledge.

If this is believed to be the case, action may be taken against you, either through a penalty notice fine or prosecution in a magistrates’ court.

The Anti-Social Behaviour Act 2003 introduced legislation for local authorities to issue a penalty notice fine to the parent of a child who has unauthorised absences from school.

A penalty notice can be issued for the following reasons:

School responsibilities are:

Headteachers cannot grant any leave of absence for family holidays.

Where a family chooses to take a holiday during term time and the absences are coded as unauthorised, the local authority may issue a penalty notice.

The High Court has confirmed that schools, not parents, authorise absence.

Schools must use the national attendance codes to ensure consistency in the treatment and recording of attendance and absence.

In most cases, illness will be the reason for absence. However, schools can authorise absence for some exceptional circumstances. Such decisions will take place at the headteacher’s discretion. An example of authorised absence would be bereavement. Unacceptable reasons would include a family holiday, shopping trip or a birthday.

Where it is believed that a parent has the ability to improve a child’s attendance at school but fails to do so, sanctions can be used as a means of enforcing attendance (never as a punishment). Parents may be prosecuted if they fail to ensure their child receives an education. The following sections of the Education Act 1996 apply:

The only grounds for challenge in law to an offence under Section 444 are:

See our Attendance documentation and links below:

Doncaster Council Fixed Penalty Notice Information

Government School Attendance and Absence Information