Attendance
Hartford CE High School is committed to improving students’ attendance and punctuality. Students should be on time, every day, unless the reason for absence is unavoidable.
We praise those students with 100% attendance by sending a certificate each term and entering students with 100% into a prize draw.
Good attendance is essential for students’ learning and attainment and opens up more opportunities for their future.
To request a leave of absence from school for your child, please complete and submit the Request for Leave of Absence form. Please give as much notice as possible
Download Request for Leave of Absence form
- A child who is absent a day of school per week misses an equivalent of two years of their school life
- 90% of young people with absence rates below 85% fail to achieve five or more good grades of GCSE and around one third achieve no GCSEs at all
- Poor examination results limit young people’s options and poor attendance suggests to colleges and employers that these students are unreliable
- Poor school attendance is also closely associated with crime, a quarter of school age offenders have truanted repeatedly
Absence at any stage leads to gaps in students’ learning. This in turn can:
- Mean that they fall behind in work
- Affect their motivation
- Affect their enjoyment of learning
- Lead to poor behaviour
- Affect their desire to attend school regularly
- Affect their confidence in school
- Mean they miss out on the social life of school and extra-curricular opportunities and experiences
- Affect their ability to have or keep friendships
Everyday half-day absence is recorded by staff as either authorised or unauthorised. Information regarding the reason for absence is always required. You can do this via telephone to our absence line 01606786000 or via email to your child’s head of year or pastoral manager.
The school will determine whether an absence is authorised or unauthorised.
Unauthorised absences are an offence by the parent under section 7 of the 1996 Education Act. These may include:
- Keeping children off school without a good reason
- Truancy from a whole session
- Absences which have never been properly explained
- Children who arrive at school too late to get a mark
- Taking unauthorised holidays
Students need to be on site for 8.30am and go to their year group zone. Those students that enter school after 8.40am are late for school and will be kept on that day until 3.30pm. Parents will be notified by an email if their child is late for school.
