Under provision of Section 444 of the Education Act 1996 parent/carers are legally responsible for ensuring their children attend school regularly and on time.
Parents are required to contact the academy absence line (0113 2739120) before 8.25am to inform the academy if their child will be absent.
Home visits will be conducted by members of the Attendance Team if a student’s attendance is of concern. The purpose of making home visits is to have a conversation with families about their young person’s attendance, complete a safeguarding check and offer support where applicable.
Please be aware that Bishop Young Academy works closely with Leeds City Council. We will transfer cases of persistently poor attendance for possible prosecution in either the Family or Magistrates court.
The government state that any student with attendance below 90% is as a Persistent Absentee. Schools will refer to these students as PA students.
Students with attendance below 85% are labelled as Entrenched PA. These students are 50% more likely to fail to achieve 5 GCSEs and are highly unlikely to reach the entry requirements for college and post-16 courses.
Both PAs and Entrenched PA’s are more at risk of:
PA and Entrenched PA students also miss out on the wide range of opportunities available to them as part of their school life. This, alongside their academic underachievement, means they leave school without having achieved their true potential.
At Bishop Young we are passionate about students being proud to be the best that they can be, and this is why we will tenaciously work with families and young people to combat persistent absence and support students to attend all day, every day, all the way through their school career.
If your child is classed as a persistent absentee then we will make contact with you to arrange a School Attendance Panel.
Bishop Young Academy does not authorise term time holidays.
Amendments to the Education (Pupil Registration) Regulations in relation to term time holidays on 1st September 2013, make it clear that schools are no longer allowed to authorise holidays during term time. As a result, only exceptional circumstance leave can be authorised by the Principal and must be applied for prior to the leave being taken. If you believe that you have exceptional circumstances that mean extended leave must be taken, please complete the Extended Leave Request Form and return it to your child’s Head of Year.
This will then be processed on a case by case basis. We will write to you in order to inform you of the outcome of this review.
We recognise that financial pressures and work commitments sometimes make it difficult to take holidays outside of school time. However, we ask for your full support in ensuring that your son / daughter is in school all of the time to access an outstanding education.
If you choose to take an unauthorised leave of absence the case will be transferred to Leeds City Council to process a penalty fine. We will notify you of this by letter. After the case has been referred, Bishop Young have no involvement with the penalty process.
Penalty Notices are issued by Leeds City Council on our behalf and are issued per parent, per child. Note: Payment of a Penalty Notice (from September 2013), if paid within 21 days, is £60. If you do not pay within 21 days the fine is increased to £120 and you have a further 7 days to make this payment in full. I must advise you that failure to make payment of a penalty notice can result in prosecution in Magistrates Court.
