Attendance
Anne-Marie Gallacher, Attendance Officer
As Attendance Officer at Calder Learning Trust I work alongside parents and key school staff to promote excellent attendance, reduce levels of absence and support students in achieving to their full potential. I work with children and families to promote high levels of attendance and I aim to promote the positive attendance and punctuality culture at Calder Learning Trust, celebrating successes and working with families to overcome any barriers to attendance.
Should you have any queries or worries regarding your child’s attendance, please do not hesitate to contact me on the school number or arrange to come into school to meet me.
Attendance Information:
At Calder Learning Trust, our motto is ‘Everybody, Everyday’ and we expect all our students to have attendance over 96%, as excellent attendance is directly linked to academic achievement.
We monitor attendance very closely at Calder Learning Trust and at Calder High School once a week during form time, Form Tutors update students on their current attendance percentage. Each child is ranked in one of the following categories depending on their percentage attendance.
| Green | 96- 100% |
| Amber | 90 -95.99% |
| Red | 0 -89.9% |
Every half term whole school attendance is reported on to Heads of Year, Deputy Head and the Attendance Officer. If your child’s attendance is below 90% an intervention strategy will be implemented. This may be a phone call home, meeting in school, home visit, referral to Education Welfare Officer or legal action such as fines, Final Warnings or a court referral.
In the rare event of your child being absent please ring the attendance officer on 01422 883213 to report their absence. If their absence is unreported, the absence may be recorded on your child’s attendance record as unauthorised. Parents/carers are asked to notify school of unavoidable absence by 9am at the latest. We advise that medical and dental appointments are taken outside of school hours, but if appointments during school hours are unavoidable, they need to be evidenced by an appointment card which should be handed to Student Services when your child is signing in or out. Pupils may not be signed out without verification of appointment.
Punctuality Information:
Punctuality to school and lessons is vitally important and Calder Learning Trust monitors this closely. Being on time is not only an essential life skill, but future colleges, 6th forms and employers take punctuality into account as part of their admissions process and poor time keeping may adversely affect potential acceptance onto courses and employment.
If they are late twice in 1 week, they will receive a detention.
If your child is persistently late the ‘unauthorised’ code will be used. Parents will be notified by letter and if your child’s punctuality does not improve, fines or court action may be issued.
Holidays in Term Time:
Calder Learning Trust follows Government Guidelines and does not authorise any holidays taken in term time. Where there are extreme or serious extenuating circumstances permission must be sought in writing from the Headteacher.
For a copy of the Exceptional Circumstances Request Form Click Here.
Attendance Awards:
We celebrate outstanding and improved attendance at Calder Learning Trust. Students who have sustained a high level of attendance or significantly improved their attendance and punctuality will receive Certificates in termly celebration assemblies.
In addition, we have some fantastic rewards available to our students. For example, students with outstanding attendance, behaviour and merits will be eligible for our end of year reward trips. We are looking forward to our exciting rewards trips – so make sure your child is part of it!
We hold a 100% attendance raffle each half term in which eligible students can win love to shop vouchers. We also run half termly inter-form attendance competitions for top attending form groups in each year. The winning form groups win prizes such as a form breakfast, or chocolatey treats which they enjoy together as a team with their Tutor.
