Lawn Primary School is committed to raising standards and achievements in all aspects of your child’s education. We recognise that high levels of student attendance are closely linked to academic success. As a result, we set a minimum target of 96% attendance for all of our students.
By law, all children of compulsory school age must have appropriate full-time education and it is the parent’s legal responsibility to ensure their child attends school regularly. This means your child must attend every day that the school is open. If your child fails to do so, you risk getting a penalty notice or being prosecuted.
Good attendance is a skill for life and attendance has an impact on a child’s whole school experience. As well as affecting your child’s academic potential, poor or irregular attendance can have an impact on your child’s friendships, self-esteem and confidence.
We monitor the attendance of every child in the school. Where we have concerns about a child's attendance, our Welfare Manager may ask to meet with you to see how we can support regular attendance, you may receive a letter home or be invited to an Attendance Meeting with the school and / or Kent County Attendance Officer.
90 % attendance sounds good, but means that your child misses:
• One half day each week.
• Nearly four weeks every school year.
• Over one school year in a school career.
• A child whose attendance falls below 80% will rarely achieve their potential.
We appreciate attendance levels can be affected by illness, particularly colds and tummy bugs. We would therefore encourage all parents to send their children into school wherever possible. However, if they have been ill with sickness and/or diarrhoea, please keep them off school until they have been symptom free for a minimum of 48 hours to prevent the bug spreading throughout the school community as this has a significant, adverse effect on attendance levels of both children and staff.
We understand and appreciate that children can become ill and that it is not always easy to decide whether to send them into school or keep them at home, so to help you with this decision we have devised a useful reference guide



