Regular attendance at Hazel Oak School enables pupils to make good progress. Pupils who achieve 100% attendance are recognised and rewarded.

We ask that wherever possible, family holidays are taken in school holidays and not in term time.

Notifying school

Please contact the school at your earliest convenience to let us know if your child will be absent. Dial the school number and leave a message on our absence reporting line (744 4162 – Option 1).

Family Holidays

Authorisation of family holidays during term time is at the discretion of the Head Teacher and is for a maximum of 10 days’ absence.

Leave of absence request forms are available from the school office. Any holiday taken without prior permission will be classed as unauthorised.

Illness

We recognise that from time to time your child may be ill; please let us know as soon as possible if they are unable to attend school. If your child has suffered from Diarrhoea and vomiting, we follow guidance from the Health Protection Agency which recommends that pupils are absent from school for 48 hours from the last episode of D & V.

Medical Appointments

For routine appointments we ask that you make every effort to arrange these out of school time.

The Department for Education and Skills expects all students to achieve an attendance level of at least 95% in every school year.

Solihull Local Authority advise that unacceptable reasons for absence from school include, but are not limited to, the following:

• shopping
• birthday treats and trips
• looking after others at home
• non-urgent medical or dental appointments
• family holidays

As you are aware, we are no longer able to authorise holidays or absence from school unless there are exceptional circumstances. We would ask that you arrange family holidays and trips during school holidays as missing school can have a detrimental effect on your child’s education.

If your child does not attend school following a declined leave of absence request from School, a penalty notice may be issued. Please see the following guidance from Solihull Local Authority:

“In cases of absence from school, when the pupil has been taken on a “leave of absence” in term time and the absence has not been authorised by the school, and the school have followed the Local Authority policy, a penalty notice will be issued.

In such cases each parent will receive a separate penalty notice for each child taken out of school.

Should a parent fail or refuse to pay a penalty notice then the evidence provided by the school registration certificate (or that of alternative education provider) will be the primary information laid before the court.”

We would ask that you arrange routine dental and medical appointments for outside of school hours where possible, however we appreciate that this is not always possible, particularly when seeing an orthodontist or attending hospital appointments. If these appointments do need to be attended during school hours, we require a copy of the appointment letter / card to store on your child’s record in order to authorise the absence. Without this, the absence will unfortunately have to be recorded as unauthorised.

 For pupils of any age, missing a session of school can have a detrimental effect on your child’s learning and progress as work often can’t be repeated.