At Waverley, we believe that regular attendance is essential for children to reach their full potential. Every child has the right to access safe, inclusive and high quality education and we are commited to creating an environment where all students feel valued, secure and welcomed. We understand that barriers to education can be complex and multifaceted, often influenced by the student's medical needs. To address this, we emphasise the importance of building trusting relationships between school and families. By working in partnership, we aim to identify and remove or reduce barriers to attendance when and where possiblein order to address the root causes of absence and promote a culture of good attendance for all.
Understanding that habitual absence can impact on a child's development, we prioritise early intervention to encourage families to collaborate with us in reducing absences. Ensuring students attend regularly allows access to a wide range of learning, development and social enrichment opportunities which are essential for building self-esteem, confidence and independence.
Our overarching goal is to prevent absences through proactive measures, establishing positive habits from the outset. This approach supports students social, emotional and academic growth, providing them withthe best possible foundation for success both within school and in their future endeavors.
We use a system called studybugs which allows us to monitor attendance and absence and we work closely with the Education Welfare Officer (EWO) to address ongoing concerns regarding aschool atttendance and absence. Please contact the school office if you would like a copy of the school's 'Attendance and Absence Policy'.
Families are expected to:
- Ensure their child attends school everday.
- Ensure their child is punctual, arriving to school at 9am (unless their child is transported to school by the transport team).
- Ensure that the school have up to date contact information for 2 emergency contacts in addition to the parent contact details.
- Telephone the school office on 020 8805 1858 between 8am-8.45am to report their child's absence for every day that they are absent, providing an expected date of return if possible. Alternatively, families can report their child's absence through the studybugs platform (details below).
- Inform us of any circumstances that may affect your child's attendance at school at the earliest opportunity.
- Book GP and dental appointments outside of school hours or during the school holidays.
- Avoid taking holidays during term time.
- Complete a leave of absence form if they need to request leave for their child (i.e. for religious observance). This form can be collected from the office or sent home with your child. All leave of absence requests will be reviewed by the headteacher and the request will be authorised or unauthorised accordingly.
- follow advice given by public health or medical professionals before sending your child back to school, if they have been unwell. This is because many of our students are medically vulnerable.
Studybugs
We use the platform studybugs to monitor attendance and reasons for absence. Studybugs is a secure app which can be downloaded from the app/play store for free by scanning the QR code below.
The benefits of using studybugs:
- It can be used by families to report their child's absence, instead of calling the school office.
- It provides realtime alerts so the school receive notifications when a child is absent.
- It updates public health so they are aware of any contagions in the school.
- It's quick and easy to register and use.
