It is the responsibility of the parent/carer to ensure that your child attends school regularly. Should your child become ill and be unable to attend, please telephone the academy as soon as possible. There is an answering service on which you can leave a message at any time of the day or night. Please avoid unnecessary absences as the continuity of your child’s education will suffer.

If your child is going to be absent from school you must let us know before 9:30am. If we do not hear from you by this time this may result in a visit to your home for reasons of safeguarding.

The academy absence line is: 0113 212 7100. Medical or dental appointments during the school day will not be authorised unless they are urgent. If you wish your child to leave school during the day for medical or dental appointments you must provide an appointment letter in advance.

Punctuality –

The academy opens its doors at 8:45am and the door are closed at 9:00am. Once the doors are closed, children must enter the academy through the main office. Registration begins at 8:50am and ends at 9:00am. If a child arrives after this time, they will be marked as Late (L) in the register.

If children arrive after 9:30 am, they will be recorded as an unauthorised (U) which affects your child’s attendance.

Being late to school has a significant impact on the amount of learning time lost over a school year:

The Government has implemented legislation stating that no requests for holidays can be authorised except in exceptional circumstances. Please note that the definition of ‘exceptional’ means ‘very unusual’. Therefore, a second request for absence based on ‘exceptional circumstances’ is extremely unlikely to be regarded as such and therefore will not be authorised

When a parent /carer feels that they have exceptional circumstances and wishes to apply to take their child out of school during term time they must complete a leave of absence form and submit it to the school at least 4 weeks before the proposed start of the holiday and before booking the holiday.

If you take your child on holiday during term time, without the authorisation of the Head of Academy, the Local Authority will issue a Fixed Penalty Notice. If a Fixed Penalty Notice is issued the penalty is £60 per Parent per Child when the payment is made within 21 days. If payment is made after 21 days but within 28 days this will increase to £120 per Parent per Child. Failure to pay within 28 days will result in a summons to appear before the Magistrates Court on the grounds that you have failed to secure your child’s regular attendance at School. If the case progresses to Court, you may receive a fine of up to £2,500, a community order or a jail sentence up to 3 months. The court also gives you a parenting order.

East Garforth Primary Academy is committed to working in partnership with parents and carers, to support pupils to achieve their full potential. East Garforth Primary Academy believes positive school attendance and punctuality is essential and directly linked to a child’s progress. We ask parents to work with us to avoid taking holidays during term time.  

If you need to make a request for Exceptional Circumstances absence please see attachments regarding penalty notices below and complete a form by clicking this link https://forms.office.com/e/vH3TZUKtuD