Principles:

High levels of attendance and excellent punctuality are both characteristics of students who achieve above or in-line with their potential. Research shows poor attendance and punctuality has a serious detrimental effect on outcomes. Attendance falling below 95% has been shown to result in an average reduction of one grade at A level per subject and this increases to two grades when attendance falls below 90%.

Aims / Objectives

• To improve student attendance and punctuality and encourage students and parents to realise the importance of good attendance and punctuality.
• To reduce to zero the number of sixth form students whose attendance at college drops below 90%.
• To work with students, families and other professionals to remove barriers to attendance wherever possible.
• To ensure that the proper maintenance of registers and the submission of attendance data, are met.
• To allow effective use of attendance data in the College.
• To give clear guidance on expectations and procedures regarding attendance and punctuality and the taking of registers to all stakeholders.

Expectations

• Students are expected to attend all timetabled lessons (including Elective lessons), morning registration, Form periods, assemblies and House sessions.
• Students in Year 13 are excused from morning registration if they have a study period during lesson 1.
• It is an expectation that all Sixth Form students maintain a cumulative rate of attendance at 95% or above..
• Sixth Form students are expected to attend fully during the College day from 8.25am to 3.25pm. Home Study is permitted and students may go off-site if they do not have a lesson. Students may also go off site during the lunch period.
• Students are expected to use their study periods to work independently either in Sixth Form Centre, the Library, QSR or in departmental areas with the agreement of the Head of Faculty.

 

Procedures

Students should be encouraged to take responsibility for:

• Ensuring their own full attendance.
• Being present at all lessons, morning registration, Form periods, assemblies and House meetings.
• Being punctual to all lessons, morning registration , Form periods, assemblies and House meetings.
• Signing in at the Office if they should be in a lesson but their teacher is absent.
• Signing out at the Office if they leave the premises at any time.
• Giving all of their teachers notice and seeking work for any planned absence.
• Asking their teachers for missed work and catching up after any absence.
• Ensuring that their parents communicate with the office should they be unable to attend.
• Signing in at the Office before going straight to Lesson 1 if they arrive late, where the teacher will record their late arrival.

 

Parents have responsibility for:

• Encouraging their child to achieve full attendance and arrive at school punctually (as per the Sixth Form Home School Agreement).
• Arranging family holidays during the school holidays in order to avoid absence.
• Seeking permission in writing from the Heads of Sixth Form (for short absences e.g. university visits) or the Principal (longer absences) well in advance (at least 7 days) for any planned absence.
• Trying, wherever possible, to make medical (or similar) appointments for their daughters outside of school time. If appointments are absolutely necessary, ensuring that an email or letter requesting absence is submitted to the Head of Sixth Form in advance.
• Monitoring their child’s attendance.
• Negotiating an appropriate plan with the College in the event of long-term absence.
• Immediately informing the College by telephone, note or email if their child is unable to attend school, giving a reason for her absence.

 

Subject Teachers have responsibility for:

• Being aware of their obligation to complete accurate registers (See Appendix 2).
• Keeping a head count of all students in class so that in the event of a fire drill or alarm, teachers know how many students should be at assembly point.
• Completing a registration for each lesson and submitting it on SIMS employing the codes specified in Appendix 3.
• Marking students late on the register if they arrive during lesson 1 after register has been taken, checking that they have first signed in at the Office.
• Submitting register immediately should you receive a reminder from Office staff.
• Contacting the office as soon as possible, using the absence email address and copying in the Heads of Sixth Form, should a student not arrive for any session after period 1, without a pre-entered code appearing in the register.
• Ensuring lessons are sufficiently stimulating and useful from the moment they start in order to promote punctuality and attendance.
• Promoting good attendance within their lessons.
• Monitoring attendance in their lessons and referring any concerns regarding attendance or punctuality to their Head of Department and the student’s tutor.
• Dealing with individual students regarding punctuality to their lessons.
• Assisting students to keep up-to-date with work should they need to miss or have missed lessons.

Heads of Department have responsibility for:

• Monitoring attendance in their department.
• Checking if there are any patterns of attendance or punctuality which relate to their subject or a particular subject teacher specifically (e.g. a student who is frequently absent for the same lesson each week).
• Supporting subject teachers with any issues related to attendance and punctuality.
• Informing Office Manager of any visits or activities which might require registers to be completed by the office.
• Informing a student’s tutor of any concerns relating to attendance or punctuality in the department.

Tutors have responsibility for:

• Promoting good attendance and punctuality amongst their tutees.
• Ensuring that registration (which also acts as morning roll call) is complete by 8.35.
• Ensuring that afternoon registration is completed by 2.20.
• Monitoring the attendance and punctuality of students in their tutor group, using the data provided on a weekly basis by the Heads of Sixth Form
• Discussing attendance and punctuality in academic mentoring sessions either to offer praise or promote improvement and link with academic achievement.
• Liaising with subject teachers, subject leaders and Heads of Sixth Form regarding a student’s attendance and punctuality.
• Contacting parents, in the first instance, should there be any concerns regarding a student’s attendance and punctuality, using the suggested email template provided by Heads of Sixth Form: https://jerseyedu.sharepoint.com/:w:/s/JCG/JCGStaff/Edf1Dm2YaGlJpBt7zzl-xaEBhh28A_tvtFlbmHVCwaJ4Jg?e=WjrTuh (Please see Appendix 6)
• Informing the office of any communication from parents regarding absence of a student.
• Completing afternoon roll call registration on all days using the procedures in place (including assembly day and House day).
• Providing a tutor time that is engaging and purposeful so that students consider it important to attend.

Heads of Sixth Form have responsibility for:

• Checking Sixth Form weekly reports of students with absent codes N, O and G and following up on individual cases as appropriate.
• Communicating to parents when there are concerns about attendance / punctuality.
• Setting up a meeting with parents and student if this action is considered necessary.
• Liaising with parents and negotiating a plan in the event of long-term absence.
• Discussing concerns with Assistant Head Teacher (AHT) Student Progress and Welfare in weekly meeting and contacting parents, using standard letter or as appropriate.
• Supporting tutors and subject teachers in ensuring that students attend lessons and arrive punctually.
• Informing staff in briefings of actions and students to monitor in relation to attendance and punctuality.

College Business Manager / Administration Support has responsibility for:

• Ensuring that morning registration (roll call) is complete by 9am.
• Following up on Ns from AM registration.
• Managing the InVentry electronic sign-in system, including supervising students who sign in late.
• Completing roll calls with appropriate codes (see Appendix 2) should a student be absent.
• Liaising with Heads of Department regarding any visits or activities that may require the office to complete registers.
• Liaising with the Examinations Officer regarding students who are involved in examinations and completing registers as appropriate.
• Checking that lesson-by-lesson registers are completed by all staff.
• Sending reminders to staff when lesson by lesson registers have not been submitted by the next morning.
• Informing AHT Student Progress and Welfare if any members of staff persistently fail to submit registers.
• Collating accurate attendance statistics for the Heads of Sixth Form on a weekly basis (including exchange of data with collaboration partners) and completing the initial colour-coded analysis.
• Collating accurate attendance statistics for AHT Student Progress and Welfare when required.

Assistant Head Teacher Student Progress and Welfare has responsibility for:

• Communicating and promoting the importance of good attendance and its link with good academic progress throughout the school.
• Supporting the Heads of Sixth Form in ensuring that good attendance and punctuality is promoted throughout the Sixth Form.
• Meeting with the Heads of Sixth Form in order to monitor their analysis of attendance and discuss any concerns.
• Supporting and challenging staff who persistently fail to submit registers or submit inaccurate registers and referring these cases to the Principal should there be no improvement.
• Communicating serious concerns relating to student attendance to Vice Principal and Principal.
• Monitoring the attendance statistics provided by the Heads of Sixth Form.
• Providing statistics to Principal as required.

 

Principal has responsibility for:

• Authorising or not authorising, at his discretion, any requests for absence.
• Monitoring attendance in the school.
• Reporting attendance statistics to Governors.

Consequences of poor attendance/punctuality

• Student will be spoken to by form tutor/subject teacher (Heads of Sixth Form informed)
• Form tutor tutor will contact l parents (Heads of Sixth Form informed and parental communication log completed on SIMS)
• Student will be spoken to by relevant Head of Sixth Form
• Relevant Head of Sixth Form will call parents
• Relevant Head of Sixth Form will write to parents
• Relevant Head of Sixth Form will invite parents in for a meeting and student will be placed on a Sixth Form Contract and will have permission to go offsite withdrawn
• Principal will invite parents in for a meeting in which a final warning will be given
• If no improvement, student’s place at JCG may be jeopardised

Relationship to other policies

External Policies: 

• Data Protection

Internal Policies:

• Tracking
• Safeguarding and Child Protection
• Academic mentoring
• Improving Behaviour

• In addition to School Secretary keeping up-to-date registers in the School Office, all class teachers should be responsible for keeping a head count of all students, so that in the event of a fire drill or alarm, all teachers know how many students should be at the assembly point and this head count can be compared with the School Secretary’s records
• There should also be another person allocated to obtain the records if the School Secretary is temporarily unavailable for any reason
• Schools may have their own procedures for maintaining a written register (e.g. keeping an up-to-date printout of names with the School Secretary)

Our interpretation.

• In the events of a full school evacuation for fire or any other reason, the responsible person or their delegate in the Admin Office will take the InVentry and office mobile device with them to the assembly point. InVentry are updated with visitor information and sign-out records of students and staff. The office mobile device will allow access to SIMS and students records, including attendance records.
• All class teachers are be responsible for keeping a head count of all students, so that in the event of a drill or alarm, all teachers know how many students should be at the assembly point. Teachers should take their school mobile devices with them as the mobile device will allow access to SIMS and students records, including attendance records.

• Students register at the office before logging in to Show My Homework to collect the cover work. They may then either stay in classrooms or go to study areas to work.
• If cover work has been given to students prior to the lesson in the event of planned absence students should sign in at the office and go to work in study areas.

Unless an alternative symbol has been entered by the office and you follow it, please only use the symbols as per below. Please don’t worry about the ‘P’, ‘V’ etc. on the SIMS screen.

AM Registration 8.25am and Lesson 1 

Scenario	Action
Student is present	/
Student is absent and office have pre-entered a symbol	Submit register with the pre-entered symbol
Student is absent	N
Student arrives late (8.30 or after register has been submitted)	Send to the office to sign in
Student has music/exam/sport/ other activity in school but no symbol entered by office	N

Lesson 2 onwards

Scenario	Action
Student is present	/
Student is absent and office have pre-entered a symbol	Submit register with the pre-entered symbol
Student is absent and office have not pre-entered a symbol	N Get message to the office [email protected]
Student arrives late	L
You know the student has music/exam/sport/ other activity that is in school as you have seen a list to say they are involved.	Q

PM Registration 2.00pm (may be 1.50pm in the event of a ‘live’ assembly)

Scenario	Action
Student is present	/
Student is absent and office have pre-entered a symbol	Submit register with the pre-entered symbol
Student is absent and office have not pre-entered a symbol	N Get message to the office [email protected]
Student arrives late	L
Student has music/exam/sport/ other activity in school but no symbol entered by office	N

 

 Attendance codes to be used by Administration Support only

Present	/	Use this if the student is in your lesson and on time
Unauthorised absence	O	Do not use this without confirmation from SLT
Late	L	Use this if a student arrives for a lesson late unless it is morning registration when the office will enter lateness when you have already marked student as ‘N’
Educated off-site	B	Only use if code has been pre-entered by office
Other authorised	C	Only use if code has been pre-entered by office (this usually means that the student is authorised to not be in school for an exceptional reason; office staff to enter the reason when they pre-enter the C code)
Dual Registration	D	Only use if code has been pre-entered by office
Unauthorised Holiday / Leave	G	Only use if code has been pre-entered by office
Approved holiday / Leave	H	Only use if code has been pre-entered by office
Illness	I	Only use if code has been pre-entered by office
Medical Appointment	M	Only use if code has been pre-entered by office
Approved Sporting Activity	P	Only use if code has been pre-entered by office
Religious observance	R	Only use if code has been pre-entered by office
Study leave	S	Only use if code has been pre-entered by office
Late - 30 minutes after register	U	You should not have to enter this one
Educational visit/trip	V	Only use if code has been pre-entered by office
Work experience	W	Only use if code has been pre-entered by office
Interview	J	Only use if code has been pre-entered by office
No Reason yet provided	N	You should use this one when a student is not present in your lesson and no code has previously been entered by the office. If it is not registration, you should contact the office to see if they know where the student is.
Not required to attend	Q	Present in school but not in your lesson for a legitimate reason (e.g. sitting an exam).

The main codes class teachers should use are / or N for AM registration/Lesson 1. In subsequent lessons, the office should have already pre-entered a code (e.g I /S/M etc.). 

Teachers will:

• Enter any student not present as an N.
• Email [email protected] for each N entered from lesson 2 onwards, copying in Heads of Sixth Form
• Please do not email for absent students during AM registration or period 1.
• Amend register to L if student arrives late at any point during period 1 and ensure that student has signed in.

The Office will:

• Provide sign in lists for Sixth Form lessons where the teacher is absent and enter these registers.
• Run an Ns report, ideally at 9.00 for AM registration and follow up on students who have been marked as N; if following up after 8.35, office staff should check the sign in book in case student has arrived late and signed in before they try calling home.
• If a student arrives late, after 8.35 they should sign in at the office and go to their lesson where the teacher will mark them as ‘L’.
• College Business Manager produces a weekly attendance report, which is analysed with colour-coding by Administration Support and sent to the Heads of Sixth Form (to forward to tutors with appropriate actions indicated).

Heads of Sixth Form will:

• Follow up tutors who consistently have several students marked as an N for form time
• Spend some time each week looking at the attendance report and following up on students who have a pattern of Ns / a growing or concerning number of Ns

Dear Parent

Your daughter's attendance has slipped below 95% on more than one occasion in recent weeks; I have discussed this with her and know that I can count on your support in maximising her attendance in the remaining weeks of this term.

Please do not hesitate to contact me if you would like to discuss further.

Regards,

Tutor