Author: Mr Roundtree

At St James’ CE Primary, we’re always keen to hear your views. Most parents and carers are happy to let us know at any point if something’s gone wrong – and even sometimes when things have gone well! However, it’s always useful to collect your views on some standard questions – the same questions that Ofsted use during inspections.

We ask that you visit the survey site and respond to a series of statements – either agree / agree strongly or disagree / disagree strongly (or say that you don’t know). The statements include:

• My child is happy at school.
• My child feels safe at this school.
• My child makes good progress at this school.
• My child is well looked after.
• My child is taught well.

There’s also the opportunity to add any comments you may have. The survey should take you about five minutes – maybe a bit longer if you add lots of comments. The survey is open until 11 June.

The results of the survey are used by school leaders, including the governing body, to shape what we do in the future – your views do matter.

As always, if you’ve any questions, comments of concerns, do let us know.

In the summer term, the number of parents / carers requesting term-time absence increases a little. We do not authorise term-time absence for holidays or other reasons that are avoidable. This follows our Attendance Policy which the Governing Body agree, and follows the recommendations from the Department for Education.

If a child has unauthorised absences, there is the likelihood that parents will be issued with a penalty notice from Leeds City Council.

The National Association of Headteachers has produced some guidance recently, extracts of which are shown here:

The Education (pupil registration) (England) (amendment) Regulations 2013, which came into force on 1 September 2013, made it clear that head teachers may not grant any leave of absence during term time unless ‘exceptional circumstances’ prevail.

The fundamental principles for defining ‘exceptional circumstances’ are that they are ‘rare, significant, unavoidable and short’.

Term times are for education. This is the priority. Children and families have 175 days off school to spend time together, including weekends and school holidays. Head teachers will rightly prioritise attendance. The default school policy should be that absences will not be granted during term time and will only be authorised in exceptional circumstances.

If an event can be reasonably scheduled outside of term time then it would not be normal to authorise absence for such an event – holidays are therefore not considered ‘exceptional circumstances’.