Every School Day Matters

What missing school costs

Most of what happens in a lesson cannot be sent home afterwards. Notes and worksheets can, and our lesson pages and quizzes are on Moodle for any child who was away to work through — but the explanation the teacher gave when half the class looked confused, or the question a classmate asked that cleared things up for everyone, cannot be posted anywhere. A child who was absent simply missed it, and catching up on Moodle does not get it back.

The numbers add up faster than most people expect. A child who misses one day a fortnight loses about three and a half school weeks over the year. That is a lot in any subject, and in subjects that build step by step — Mathematics especially — it shows quickly, because next week’s work assumes last week’s was understood.

There is also plenty a school day teaches that is not on the timetable: working with people you did not choose, disagreeing without falling out, getting over a bad mark or a difficult morning. Children pick these things up by being here regularly. Turning up on the days you do not much feel like it is a useful habit at any age, and it starts young.

Absence affects the whole class

When a pupil is away, it is not only their problem. Discussion, practical work and group projects all depend on people being there, and the rest of a group ends up carrying the gap. In a school our size this is more noticeable than it would be somewhere large — a class of twelve with three away is a different room, and the teacher feels the drop in pace straight away.

What our own registers tell us

Last year we went through a full year of our own attendance records to see where learning is actually being lost. Two things stood out.

Fridays. Absence on Fridays is noticeably higher than midweek. There is no obvious reason it should be — the lessons are the same.

The start and end of terms. Attendance dips in the last days before each holiday and takes a while to recover afterwards. The effect grows through the year: small before Christmas, larger before Easter, largest at the summer — in the final week of last year, more than a quarter of the school was away, and the opening days of the year before it looked much the same. Each family leaving a few days early or coming back a few days late seems minor on its own. Added together it costs our pupils more learning than illness does.

So we ask families to treat the published dates as firm: term starts on the first day and ends on the last. If travel has to be booked, please book around those dates.

School trips are school days

Overnight stays and excursions are part of the school year, not an extra on top of it. Three days away from home — sharing a room, carrying your own kit, doing something that looks a bit frightening — asks more of a child than most weeks in a classroom do, and what they gain comes back with them. That is what our Ecogrip adventure trips are for. Pupils on the recent Belihul Oya trip did things they did not think they could do, and they knew it.

Unless a child is genuinely unwell, please do not let them opt out of a trip. Reluctance beforehand is common and is usually nerves, and the reluctant ones are often the ones who get the most from going.

We know trips cost money. We try to keep prices fair and give as much notice as we can so there is time to plan, and if the cost of a trip is ever a difficulty, tell us in confidence and we will see what we can do.

Being on time

A pupil who arrives late misses the start of the lesson and interrupts it for everyone else. The first bell goes at 08:20 and pupils head to registration then — please aim to have your child in school before it. We hold ourselves to the same standard: the aim is that the teacher is in the room, ready to start, when the second bell rings.

Lates are recorded at both daily registers. Five in a term brings a letter home, and the rule is the same for every pupil.

What we ask of you

• Tell us early. If your child will be absent or late, use our Report an Absence form before the school day starts. It takes about a minute, and the form tutor sees it before the register is taken.
• Talk to a person when something is harder than a form. If attendance is becoming difficult — whatever the reason — the right first step is a conversation, not a letter. Contact the school office, or your child’s Year Group Advisor: from this September every year group has one, a named teacher who knows your child and is the right first call for anything pastoral, attendance included. The Senior Leadership Team’s addresses are at the foot of this page and we do read them.
• Plan around the school year where you can. Appointments are best made outside school hours. We know international family life brings travel, visa renewals and medicals that cannot always be moved — where the dates are flexible, check our Key Dates and use the holidays; where they are not, tell us in advance and we will work with you.
• Keep the routine. A surprising amount of poor attendance is really poor sleep. Consistent bedtimes and wake-up times matter more than anything else on this page.
• Send them ready. On time, in clean and correct uniform, with the right equipment. A child who arrives looking smart tends to work like it. Getting them out of the door ready each morning is the home end of the partnership.
• Watch your own signals. Children mostly take their attitude to school from home. If school — trips included — is treated as something that matters, your child will usually treat it the same way.

What we do on our side

Attendance is, at bottom, a safeguarding matter — a school should always know where its pupils are — and we have rebuilt how it works at GIC Senior this year. Please bear with us through any teething issues while the new systems settle in.

• Two registers a day. New this year: a register is taken every morning and every afternoon, so the record covers the whole day.
• Reporting an absence. Our online Report an Absence form replaces the phone calls and messages that used to go astray. We confirm every report with you directly, so you know it arrived — and nobody can report your child absent without you finding out.
• We follow up. If your child is absent and we have not heard from you, we will contact you — no school should let an unexplained absence pass. This is also why the primary contact number on your child’s record matters: it should be the number that is actually with you and answered during the day, because it is the one we use for everyday follow-up and the one we would need in an emergency. If it changes, tell the school office.
• Moodle. Every class has full lessons on Moodle, so a child who has to miss school can see exactly what was covered and catch up properly. It is a good backstop for an unavoidable absence — not a substitute for being in the lesson.

If attendance becomes a concern

Where absence, lateness or uniform problems build up over a term, we write home. The thresholds are fixed and the same for everyone. For absence: a letter when a pupil passes 5% of the term’s school days missed — roughly three days in a typical term — a second at 10%, and at 15% we ask the family to come in and meet us. For lateness and for uniform: a letter at five in a term, a second at ten, a meeting at fifteen. Every letter sets out the actual days and dates it refers to, so you are never looking at a bare percentage. And the meeting is not a punishment; it is where we work out a plan together, because the letters have not changed anything.

One thing worth understanding about these letters: they record facts, and they do not judge reasons. A child who has genuinely been ill still receives one, because the learning was still missed and we think parents should always have the full picture. If something underlying is making attendance difficult, the letter is a reasonable moment to tell us about it, and we will help where we can.

Our part and yours

Our job is to make school worth attending every day. Yours is to get your child here — on time, in clean uniform, properly equipped, every day term is on. Everything else we do rests on that.