Attendance

For students to reach their full potential they need to be in school. Full attendance means a student can benefit from and enjoy everything the school has to offer. We want to work with parents to ensure school attendance is consistently excellent. 

All parents who have children of compulsory school age have a legal responsibility to ensure that they receive an effective education. Parents whose children are registered at school are therefore responsible for ensuring that they attend regularly, punctually and stay in school during school hours. Failure to do so is an offence under Section 444 of the Education Act 1996.

York High’s attendance policy

We operate an attendance/punctuality policy that follows the City of York Fast Track process. To view the Trust Attendance Policy, please go to our Policies page.

We reserve the right to use the fixed penalty notice once all other interventions have been explored with both students and parents. This decision is not made lightly but does reflect the importance we place on attendance. 

We feel that by working together with parents we can remove many barriers that might lead to poor attendance. Your child’s Form Tutor is their first port of call when trying to stop any worrying attendance patterns. They will be reviewing attendance data on a weekly basis, they may feel that contact is required to see if any negative trend can be halted and reversed. 

Any student with an attendance percentage below 90% (without medical evidence to explain absence) will have further absence classified as ‘unauthorised’. 

What to do when your child is absent

If your child is likely to be absent from school, please ring: 01904 806600 Option 1 or 01904 806599 or text: 07860040378 BEFORE 8.30am at the latest to give details.

You can also email attendance@yorkhigh.elt.org.uk, with a message giving your child’s name and the reason.

The attendance officer may then be in touch, depending on the nature of the absence and your child’s current attendance levels. The school tracks unauthorised absences for all students. If your child is marked absent with no reason at morning registration, you will be contacted by the school so we can ascertain the reason for the absence or to alert you if your child is not in school when he or she should be.

If your child has medical issues

We recognise that some students have medical issues that lead to lower / poor attendance. This is obviously outside of the student’s control. In this case, please provide up to date evidence of their condition (doctors’ notes, appointment cards, appropriate medical records). The school will do their best to support any child in this position. 

Absence requests

According to the Department for Education guidelines, headteachers can only authorise leave of absence in exceptional circumstances. It is important to understand that parents and carers do not have an automatic right for their children to have time off for holidays in term time. If you wish to apply, please complete a Leave of Absence Request form at least two weeks before and hand it in to the school’s attendance officer.

Attendance Procedures

Excellent attendance and punctuality are key in helping the school to ensure it achieves its mission statement of “Resilience – Aspiration – Success”.  Without good attendance and punctuality students do not achieve their true potential, belief and understanding of our school values. To challenge and to support students to attend and be on time is to care for their futures and their welfare. It is everyone’s responsibility as a member of our school community to protect all our students and to ensure they have the best life chances, hence it is all our responsibility to ensure excellent attendance and punctuality.

Below explains the procedures the school follows to support those students whose attendance is below 90%.

Leave of absence in term time (Holiday)

The following are the procedures that should be followed if a student is evidenced to have missed school due to a Leave of absence in term time.

Form Tutor, Pastoral Team, Classroom Teacher, School Office

• Believes a student is absent/going to take a Leave of absence in term time (eg Holiday)
• Informs the Pastoral Leader and Attendance Officer via email

Attendance Officer

• Evidences Leave of absence in term time, where a minimum of 10 sessions in total (five school days) of absence must have been accrued.
• Informs Attendance Lead who will decide if a fine should be issued.

Attendance Officer

• Refers to City of York Council to issue a Fixed Penalty Notice.
• What the school will do in the case of Persistent Absence

The following illustrates the procedures we will follow to support students’ attendance.

Maximising attendance

Please take a look at this guide for parents/carers on maximising attendance.

Support with attendance

Schools from across York have worked closely together with the City of York Council to develop a city-wide attendance strategy.

You can see their Going to School: don’t let your child miss out! flyer here.