Hackney New Primary School

Hackney New Primary School is part of the Eko family of schools. All Eko Trust schools recognise that positive behaviour, good attendance and punctuality are essential in order to raise standards of pupil attainment and to give every child/young person the best educational experience possible.

There is a Trust wide policy in place: Attendance and Punctuality Policy

 This policy is written with the above statement in mind and underpins our ethos. We are committed to meeting our obligations with regards to school attendance by:

• Promoting good attendance and reducing absence, including persistent absence
• Ensuring every pupil has access to full-time education to which they are entitled
• Acting early to address patterns of absence
• We will also support parents to perform their legal duty to ensure their children of compulsory school age attend regularly, and will promote and support punctuality in attending lessons.

School specific information:

School start time: 8:45am

School end time: 4:00pm

Register closing times: 9:30am

Attendance Lead:

This is the person you should contact about attendance on a day to day basis and/or for more detailed support on attendance.

Contact details: Ms Stella Protopapa

Senior Leader:

The person with strategic oversight of attendance.

Contact details: Mrs Leighanne Walker 

Informing the school of the reason for an unexpected absence: If a child is absent from school parents/carers must follow the following procedures:

• Contact the school on the first day of absence before 9.00 am. All Trust schools have answer phones available to leave a message if nobody is available to take the call, or call into school personally and speak to the office staff. Many schools also have the option to email if there is a problem with the phone line. (See policy for further details.)

Requesting leaves of absence: 

It is a rule of the Eko Trust schools that a leave of absence shall not be granted in term time unless there are reasons considered to be exceptional by the Head Teacher/Attendance Lead, irrespective of the child’s overall attendance.

Only the Head Teacher/Attendance Lead (or his/her designate (not the local authority) may authorise such a request and all applications for a leave of absence must be made in writing to the school which the child/children attend. Where a parent removes a child when the application for leave was refused or where no application was made to the school, the issue of a penalty notice should be requested by this school.

Exceptional leave will be granted only in extraordinary circumstances.  However, Eko Trust schools will not agree exceptional leave during term time:

• during examinations and test periods (these are set a year in advance in the Trust/Examination Board’s assessment calendars)
• when a pupil’s attendance record already includes any level of unauthorised absence (regardless of the number of instances) or they have already been granted authorised leave within an academic year

NB There is a higher rate of absence and application for leave in July and September. These are key transition points and absence during these key times are often detrimental to children. This is especially very important in September as children need to settle into their new classes at the start of the academic year as quickly as possible

Fixed Penalty Notice:

In agreement with local partners, circumstances which may result in the issue of a Penalty Notice are identified. e.g: 

1. a) Where parents persistently fail to ensure their children attend school and attendance is 90 per cent or below in a term i.e. 12 or more sessions of absence in a 12 week period, with no acceptable reason, and no other legal sanctions are underway 
2. b) Term time leave is taken without obtaining the agreement of the school and the parents have been warned that a Penalty Notice may result, 
3. c) Unwarranted delayed return from term time leave without school agreement. 
4. d) Persistent late arrival after the registers have been closed (U co only) (10 sessions or more) 
5. e) Parents’ or carers’ failure to make arrangements to ensure that children who have been excluded from school due to misbehaviour are not in a public place at prescribed times during the first five school days of any exclusion, without reasonable justification.* 

* It is incumbent upon the parent(s) in such circumstances to provide proof of reasonable justification, for example, that the child or young person needed to attend a pre-arranged medical appointment, or a medical emergency requiring the child to be supervised elsewhere than at home.