The importance of regular school attendance:

Regular attendance at school is vital to help children achieve and get the best possible start in life. 

At Kellington Primary School we know the impact regular attendance has on your child’s learning and well-being; and that having good attendance is directly linked to raising achievement and developing skills for life and work. We have many initiatives to celebrate and support attendance in school and ask that parents/careers support the school in this by ensuring that your child attends school every day and arrives ready to learn and on time. Start time is 8.45am for all year groups. For afternoon Nursery pupils, school start time is 12.15pm. 

Children who frequently miss school often fall behind.  There is a strong link between good school attendance and achieving good results.  For example, only 12% of pupils with below 80% school attendance achieve five or more GCSEs at grades A*-C including English and Maths, compared to 68% for pupils with attendance greater than 95%. 

Primary national pupil attendance is around 96%. This means that a child needs to attend school for at least 182 out of 190 days to meet national expectations.

Any children who are frequently absent, have a pattern of absent days, unauthorised leave or attendance that has fallen below 97% will be contacted by school.

Persistent absentees (below 90% attendance) will be initially supported by the school’s pastoral team and if improvements are not made, then referred to the North Yorkshire attendance pathway. 

Attendance drivers are in place to celebrate those children who attend school regularly and are on time. In our weekly assemblies, attendance stars are awarded to classes who have over 90% and 95% overall attendance to gain ‘minutes’. These are then ‘spent’ by the children at the end of each half term on class rewards. We have also previously had attendance raffles where there were opportunities to be drawn to win vouchers or a place on our attendance panto trip. 

Our current driver is the chance for families to win vouchers to use in local businesses! We are so thankful for the community support to continue to raise the profile of positive school attendance.