Key Information

In this section of the website you will find the statutory information for the school. Our Governors, Head teacher and Senior Leadership Team (SLT) work together to ensure that the school fulfills all its legal requirements and that it stays up-to-date with the guidelines issued by the Department of Education (DfE). Please contact the school office if you have any questions regarding the information supplied in this section of the school website.

Attendance

We recognise that good attendance improves educational outcomes for all pupils by promoting and supporting their engagement with education. While the aim is for all children to achieve 100% attendance, we understand that illness can require children to miss a small number of days at school each year. Kent County Council works with schools to ensure that children attend school; they also work with parents and carers to ensure their child attends school regularly, on time, properly dressed and equipped and in a fit condition to learn. (See our Attendance Policy).

Our Attendance Officer is Mrs Stock, in our school office.

For every day missed at school, a child misses nearly 6 hours of teaching and learning that cannot be made up. So, if a child misses 5 days of school, they have missed nearly 30 hours of teaching and learning.

At Bishops Down, we have the following procedures in place to monitor and respond to our school attendance:

• The school will follow up all instances of poor attendance and punctuality through meetings with parents and by formal letters detailing a child's absences.

• The school provides a safe learning environment and maintains records of attendance on a daily basis according to legislation and guidance.  
• The school provides attendance details on the child’s annual report. Details of poor attendance/ punctuality will be reported to subsequent schools.
• Only the Head teacher can authorise absence.

To help encourage good attendance from all our students, the school also uses the following strategies across all year groups:

• we talk to the chidlren about their role the importance of attendance and what their role is, in attending school everyday
• we provide an exciting curriculum that children want to be part of
• we celebrate high school attendance
• we monitor pupil attendance and publish attendance in our fortnightly Newsletter

Parent responsibilities regarding attendance are set out in our Attendance Policy and includes:

• make sure your child attends everyday and on time
• call the school to report their child's absence before 8:45am on the day of the absence and each subsequent day of absence and advise the school office on a return to school date
• provide the school with at least 2 emergency contact numbers
• ensure that, where possible, appointments for your child are made out of school hours
• tell us if you need help! We understand that sometimes, attendance can be challenging, and we are here to help parents overcome any attendance difficulties.