Suffolk County Council information - Why a child should attend school

Parents can report their child's absence through the Arbor Parent Portal and Parent App. This new absence reporting tool makes life easier when reporting the absence of your child.

• Remember to report the absence before 9am.
• If your child is absent, please ensure you provide us with as much information as possible.
• Even though the Portal/App allows you to specify the length of absence, we require you to report any absence on a daily basis.
• You can continue to call the school as before (before 9am, 01473 727319), leaving a message on our automated system.  

Click here to read the guide on how to log absences through the Parent Portal and Parent App.

Welfare Checks 

As part of our statutory safeguarding duties, we continue to monitor and support good attendance. Part of this includes home visits.  

• Where an absence is due to illness, we would aim to undertake a welfare visit no later than the third day of absence. 

• If we have received no viable reason for the absence or if there are other factors that make a child potentially more vulnerable, we would usually visit on the first day. 

• A notification of a holiday, whether this has been authorised or not, would usually mean that we wouldn't attempt welfare checks. For this reason, it is really helpful if families can be honest about days off for holidays, particularly in the run up to a school holiday. This just avoids the need for staff to continue to try and visit a family and potentially disrupt your (and our) time with loved ones. 

Click here to refer to our Attendance Policy under our Policies section.

Exceptional Leave of Absence Request

An exceptional leave of absence request can be collected from the School office.

Please note unless a form has been completed at least 4 weeks before the absence, and would have been authorised by the school, the absence will be recorded as unauthorised. 

Permission for any absence during term time will only be granted in EXCEPTIONAL CIRCUMSTANCES – please see our Attendance Policy, available on the school’s website. 

It is possible that the Local Authority could issue a Fixed Penalty Notice to parents/carers where a pupil has incurred a number of unauthorised sessions of absences. The Fixed Penalty Notice referrals are completed by the school and sent to the Education Attendance Service who will issue parents/carers with a fine. 

The reasons supplied on the form will be used to inform whether the absence is authorised or unauthorised. Please provide as much detail as possible.

Why is attendance at school so important?  Read the guides below.