Pupil absence

If your child is unwell, has an appointment or is taking part in an approved education off-site activity, please contact the school office as soon as possible on the morning of the absence.  You can contact the school office via telephone, or through the form below:

If a child is absent from school the parent must follow these procedures:

• Contact the school on the first day of absence before 9am.  
• You can send an email to the school using attendance@rangefield.lewisham.sch.uk, or send a message via school app (Scholarpack), use the form below, the School also has an answer phone available (if you press option 1 to report an absence) to leave a message if nobody is available to take your call, or you may call into school personally and speak to the office staff prior to 9am. Please be aware that, if you leave a voicemail to report your child’s absence, you may receive a call from the school so that we may discuss the absence before deciding as to whether the absence is to be recorded as authorised. 
• Contact the school on every further day of absence, again before 9am, using one of the above options.
• Ensure that your child returns to school as soon as possible and you provide any medical evidence, if requested, to support the absence. Medical evidence may be requested where your child is having multiple periods of absence which are reported as being due to medical reasons. When determining whether a child is too ill to attend school, both parents and school staff can consider the advice contained within the NHS Guidance on School Absence and Childhood Illness and the Department for Education Working together to Improve School Attendance statutory guidance.

If your child is absent, we will:

• Telephone, send you a message on the school app or text you on the first, and every subsequent day of absence, if we have not heard from you.  However, it is your responsibility to contact us.
• If we are unable to contact parents by telephone, we will telephone emergency contact numbers, send letters home and a home visit may be made, in the interests of safeguarding.
• A referral will be made to Local Authority if no contact has been made with parents by the 10^th day of absence (or sooner if deemed appropriate), at which point your child will be reported as “missing from education.”

If absence continues, we will:

• Write to you if your child’s attendance is below 94% in September and 95% thereafter, and/or where punctuality is a concern.
• If there is further absence within 2 weeks of the first letter a second letter will be sent to you stating that a referral will be made to our EWO.
• Following the 2^nd letter we will arrange a meeting so that you may discuss the situation with our Senior Attendance Champion or Mrs S Pearson our EWO.
• Create a personalised action plan, such as an attendance contract, to address any barriers to attendance and make clear each person’s role in improving the attendance patterns of your child.
• Offer signposting support to other agencies or services, if appropriate.
• Refer the matter to the Local Authority for relevant legal action if attendance does not improve and parents or carers are not engaging with the support offered to them.