Walkley Primary School - Attendance Ethos

Walkley Primary promotes a whole school culture that values attendance. We understand that excellent attendance helps to improve outcomes for a child. We provide a supportive, calm orderly and productive environment for children to attend, learn and develop within. The school policy can be found here

Why is attendance Important?

Every child has a right to education and every school has a responsibility to support and encourage school attendance for pupils on their roll. Excellent attendance at school helps a child to meet their full potential.

Below are just some of the reasons why it is so important for children to attend school:  

• To learn,
• To have fun,
• To make new friends and learn social skills,
• To experience new things in life,
• To develop skills - problem solving, time keeping, 
• To build confidence and self-esteem,
• To get into daily routines that set a pattern for life,
• To receive support from school.

Attendance Rewards

Success in improved attendance and punctuality will be talked about in classes and across school. All staff will recognise the patterns in improvement across the school and acknowledge them.

In October 2022 we are starting with our new attendance rewards. We will celebrate achievements in attendance in our weekly Friday assembly with parents.

We have carefully reviewed our awards to ensure that they are fair and represent the effort that families are making to ensure excellent attendance.

The awards are given following close monitoring of the register (attendance and punctuality) by the Inclusion Manager and Senior Leadership Team. We look for patterns in improved attendance. This could involve improved punctuality for one child within a class. It could be improved attendance for identified pupils within a class. This method is more precise than a simple award for highest attendance. It offers the opportunity for any class to win each week. 

In Key Stage one, we award a class with two soft toys. Tocky the time Ted and Rainbow the Register Rabbit. 

These soft toys wear the Walkley uniform with pride and represent the school ethos in excellence in attendance and punctuality. In Key Stage two we award a special attendance trophy.

Each week one class in Key stage one will have the opportunity to win the soft toys in their classroom for the week. They join the class to celebrate the success of the pupils. In key stage two the chosen class will be awarded the trophy which will then be placed in a prominent place to celebrate their success.

The awards will be referred to throughout the week by the class teachers, demonstrating their importance and praising their class.

Every Lesson Matters

In line with “Working together to improve attendance guidance 2022” We believe that every lesson is an opportunity to learn and develop. Each lesson has its own learning goals and provides a chance to learn something new and gain a new experience. Many lessons follow ongoing schemes of work and missing one can mean a child may miss out.

When we think about attendance in school we no longer refer to percentages. We talk and think about actual lessons missed. Minutes of learning missed. Lessons can be missed due to issues with punctuality or they can be missed to be absence from school. If a child is missing lots of lessons we want to work with families improve this and to overcome any barriers to this.