Absence

Please ensure that you report your child’s absence at the earliest opportunity, but by 9am at the latest. Please see the ‘Illness’ section of this page below.

For safeguarding reasons, we require each day of absence to be reported. If we have not received a call or email into school, the school office will contact you during the course of the morning.

You can report your child’s absence by phone on 01869 350210 option 1, or by emailing office.3500@kirtlington.oxon.sch.uk.

There are 175 non-school days. We request that medical and dental appointments should preferably be made during these days, or alternatively after the school day has finished, so that your child does not miss valuable educational time.

The DfE have published a new back to school blog that you may find interesting.

You can read the latest back to school advice from the UK Health Security Agency on their website.

 

There are two types of absence: authorised and unauthorised.

Authorised absence includes:

  • A morning or afternoon session away from school for a good reason such as illness
  • Medical / dental appointments (but we hope that parents will try to make these outside school time)
  • Emergencies or unavoidable events (e.g. family bereavements).

For all of these an explanation for the absence from the child’s parent / carer is required.

Unauthorised absence includes:

  • Parents keeping children away from school unnecessarily
  • Truancy
  • Unexplained absence
  • Persistent lateness
  • Shopping trips
  • Day trips and holidays in school time

Absences of this type are recorded as unauthorised on the school register.

For either of the above absences a school absence request form must be completed and reviewed by the Headteacher beforehand, these forms are available from the school office or can be downloaded here.

 

Illness

If your child is ill and cannot attend school then you should inform the office via email or telephone by 9am on the first day of absence and give some indication of the expected day of return. We recognise that there will be occasions when children are too unwell to attend school, but ask that parents do not keep children off unnecessarily. Remember if your child is too unwell to cope with the school day we will always contact you.

Please also be aware that HPA Guidance states that children suffering from digestive illness should be kept away from school for 48 following the last bout of vomiting or diarrhoea. We also ask that you do not bring your child to school if they have a high temperature.

Useful links:

 

Scarlet fever (caused by group A streptococcus)

Scarlet fever is currently circulation, along with COVID and flu, at high levels. You can find more information in this letter for parents from the UKHSA. This letter is also available in Ukrainian.

COVID-19 Information

The latest government guidance for children and young people is as follows:

“It is not recommended that children and young people are tested for COVID-19 unless directed to by a health professional.

If a child or young person has a positive COVID-19 test result they should try to stay at home and avoid contact with other people for 3 days after the day they took the test, if they can. After 3 days, if they feel well and do not have a high temperature, the risk of passing the infection on to others is much lower. This is because children and young people tend to be infectious to other people for less time than adults.

Children and young people who usually go to school, college or childcare and who live with someone who has a positive COVID-19 test result should continue to attend as normal.”

Read the government guidance in full

Lateness

Parents are responsible for getting children to school on time. Arriving late, even by only a few minutes, means children have an unsettled start to the day and their learning and that of other children is disrupted.

At Kirtlington School our school day starts at 8.40am, please ensure that children arrive punctually.

 

Holidays

From September 2013 The Department for Education made amendments to the regulations with regard to school attendance. Headteachers in all schools will no longer be allowed to authorise leave of absence for any family holidays. From September 2013 headteachers have not been able to grant any leave of absence during term time unless there are exceptional circumstances and the number of days authorised for this would be determined by the headteacher (DFE Guidance June 2013). This means that we are no longer allowed to authorise leave of absence for family holidays. Any leave of absence requests can only be authorised by the headteacher in exceptional circumstances. Should parents take their child on holiday regardless, then this will be counted as unauthorised absence (truancy).