Attendance raises achievement – every lesson counts.
Please take some time to read through the statements on this page. If you have any concerns about your child’s attendance please contact our Attendance team via email at attendance@thebeacon.kent.sch.uk
Attending school on a regular basis is the key to your child doing well at school and sets them up with good habits from an early age through to adulthood and the working world.
It also gives children the opportunity to:
Parents are advised to:
A child registered at a school can legally miss school only in very limited circumstances. These are:
If your child is missing without good reason, schools and local authorities have a number of legal powers that they can use.
Authorised Absences include:
Unauthorised absences include:
The Beacon are unable to authorise any holiday requests. Any request for leave are to be made to the Head of School using our Exceptional Leave Request Form available from the school office. The Head of School will decide if the absence will be authorised after the reason has been given.
If you need to apply for exceptional leave for your child to be absent from school, for example a family event, please speak to the office to request an ‘application for exceptional leave’ form.
From September 2024 changes to the law were introduced through the Education Regulations. If a pupil has an absence of 10 school sessions (5 school days) in a 10 week period, the school must consider referring to the Local Authority for a Penalty Notice.
Where penalty notices are imposed, the regulations state that the first penalty will be £160 if paid within 28 days, reduced to £80 if paid within 21 days.
A second penalty notice issued to the same parent in respect of the same pupil is charged at a flat rate of £160 if paid within 28 days.
A third penalty notice cannot be issued to the same parent in respect of the same child within 3 years of the date of issue of the first. In a case where the national threshold is met for a third time (or subsequent times) within those 3 years, alternative action should be taken instead. This will often include considering prosecution, but may include other tools such as one of the other attendance legal interventions.
Penalty Notices are issued to each parent of each child. Failure to pay the penalty in full by the end of the 28-day period will result in prosecution by the Local Authority.
As a school we are committed to ensuring that your child attends school every day. We understand that at times your child may not be able to attend. If your child is unable to come to school due to an illness, pre-arranged or an emergency appointment, we do ask that the school office is notified directly by the parent/carer and not via transport or teaching staff.
If your child is not able to attend school due to an illness, please contact The Beacon on their first day of absence, explaining with the reason why. This can be done in the following ways:
If the illness persists for more than two days, we will require a daily update and we may ask that if medication is prescribed, evidence of this is also sent through.
From September 2024 schools need to inform the Local Authority if pupils will miss 15 days consecutively or cumulatively because of sickness.
You may be asked to provide evidence of medication if your child is off school for a longer period of time. If the doctor or hospital has prescribed a course of medication for an illness, evidence can be sent as an image of either the prescription or medication with the chid’s full name and date of issue. This can be emailed to attendance@thebeacon.kent.sch.uk
If your child has a pre-arranged appointment, please email
attendance@thebeacon.kent.sch.uk with a copy of the evidence. For example - the appointment letter or a screenshot of the text message. If you are unable to provide an image, then please show the school office evidence of the appointment, so this can be recorded.
We do appreciate that in some cases appointments are made at short notice, but an appointment card or note from this appointment will be required.
When your child arrives late at school, he/she misses the teacher’s instructions and the introduction to the lesson.
Your child may also feel embarrassed at having to enter the classroom late.
School begins at 9AM.
Please help your child to be punctual.
| Minutes late per day during the school year | How many days per year is this equal to? |
| 5 minutes | 3.4 days |
| 10 minutes | 6.9 days |
| 15 minutes | 10.3 days |
| 20 minutes | 13.8 days |
| 25 minutes | 20.7 days |
