Attendance 

Farsley Westroyd Primary School & Nursery believes that all children should take maximum advantage of the opportunities offered to them in school, to enable them to reach their full potential.  Being at school on time and every day is crucial to a child maximising their potential. 

Children attending school every day:

• make better progress, both socially and academically
• find routines, school work and friendships easier to manage
• find learning more satisfying
• are more likely to progress to further and higher education

The Governing Board has appointed Jo Boyne as the named Governor for Attendance. 

Reporting your Child's Absence

If your child is ill, you should contact the School Office on 0113 2551601 or the Early Years Office on 0113 2574178 before 9am.

We have an updated phone line, and you now have the option to leave a message on the answer phone. Please include your child name, class and reason for absence this will then be picked up by a member of the office staff.

If your child is expected to be absent for more than one day, you MUST make contact with school on each day your child is absent, to keep us informed of your child’s illness.

Any absence that is not notified could be passed onto the Attendance Welfare Officer or Leeds Children Services to follow up. 

If your child is not in school and we have no notification by 9:00am our policy and procedures are as follows:

• Step 1 - A phone call to primary carer
• Step 2 - Contact other emergency contacts
• Step 3 - Home Visit
• Step 4 - Risk Assessment and possible referral onto other agencies

Attendance is a key priority, every week class attendance is announced on the school website and displayed in school. 

The winning class for each week with the highest attendance in school get's a extra playtime!

Over the period of a term we do track a child’s individual attendance. If a child's attendance drops to 90% or less they are classed as persistently absent. At this point we will invite you into school to work with you to remove barriers and find solutions to improve your child's attendance. We will continue to monitor your child's attendance until there is an improvement.

What should I do if my child has a medical or dentist appointment?

Please try to arrange all appointments outside of school hours. Where this is not possible, please inform the school office on 0113 2551601 or 0113 257 4178 as soon as possible, so that we can authorise the absence when evidence is provided. We ask that if it is not possible to arrange an appointment out of school hours, that to reduce impact on learning the appointment is towards the end of the day.

NHS - Is my child too ill for school?

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Punctuality 

At Farsley Westroyd Primary, from September 2024 in line with Government guidelines to ensure pupils have access to 32.5 hours of a learning a week we are changing the start and end times to the school day. From September the school day starts at 8.45am prompt. Staff will come out to the yard at 8.40am to greet the children and bring them into school. The door and yard gates will close at 8.45am. After this time your child will be late and will need to enter by the school office. In Early Years the door opens at 8.45am with a start of 8.50am. Nursery hours are 9am - 3pm. We ask, so that the days' learning can start promptly that other than quick messages, if you need to talk to staff you do so at the end of the day or make a time for a phone call chat or in person meeting.

It is very important that children arrive at school on time as children need to settle into the daily routines and learning sessions begin promptly. Children arriving at school after 8:45am, will be recorded as late and this will be monitored during the year. 

Do you know that children who arrive a few minutes late start the day feeling more stressed and do not make a positive start to their learning? They often miss out on key messages and education. It disrupts the education of the rest of the class.

Being late to school has a significant impact on the amount of learning time lost over a school year.
The table gives you an indication of how much time is lost if regularly late.

Requesting extended leave in term time

If you need to take your child out of school during term time, you must complete an absence request form for any period of time.  This must be submitted  to the headteacher prior to the absence. In line with government guidelines holidays in termtime will not be authorised, unless there are exceptional circumstances. The government is very clear that holidays are not exceptional circumstances. You also need to be aware that if there is evidence to suggest you are on holiday without requesting leave of absence you may still be fined and other agencies notified. The new National Framework for Penalty Notices, which came into effect on 19th August 2024, following the publication of the DfE's Working Together to Improve School Attendance document.

You can access this document by clicking on the link below. 

• Working together to improve school attendance