It is essential that your child attends school on time every day.

School has a statutory duty to keep your child safe which includes knowing where they are if they are not in school. We appreciate that children are sometimes genuinely ill. If your child is going to be absent due to illness, please inform the office by 8:30am on every day of absence.

If you do not contact the office, school will ring you followed by every contact number we hold for your child until we speak to somebody. If your child is absent for two consecutive days and we are unable to contact anybody, we will visit the family home in order to ensure that your child/ children are safe and well. If we are still unable to contact a named contact then we may call 101 in order to seek the police’s assistance in locating the family.

Please note that the Education Welfare Officer constantly monitors the registers and will intervene with all cases below 96%.

At Montagu Academy, we recognise the importance of good attendance and punctuality and as a result we reward the children in the following ways:

If your child’s attendance drops below 96% without good reason, you will receive letter 1 informing you that we are concerned.

If there are further absences, letter 2 will be sent.

Following letter 1 and letter 2, if there is no improvement in your child’s attendance then the following actions may be taken:

We appreciate that some children have unavoidable medical appointments during term time such as speech and language or hospital appointments. All we ask is that you provide a copy of the appointment letter. Although we cannot mark a child present who is attending an unavoidable medical appointment, if these are their only absences, 100% rewards will not be affected.

Holidays during term time will not be authorised, unless there are exceptional circumstances, and an Education Penalty Notice will be requested from the local authority. If you are planning to remove your child from school to take them on holiday, please complete a Leave of Absence form, available from the office or below. Please be aware that if you do not complete a Leave of Absence form or inform school that you are taking your child on holiday but school has good reason to believe they are absent due to holiday, then an Education Penalty notice will still be requested. (Please refer to part c of section 3.1 ISSUING A PENALTY NOTICE of the attached Doncaster Council Code of Conduct for Education Penalty Notices May 2018).

The Penalty is £60 per parent per pupil and if not paid within 21 days this will increase to £120. Failure to pay the full amount within 28 days will result in a summons to appear in the Magistrates Court.