Our School Day

Attendance

Good attendance is essential to maintain and firm friendships and to ensure full access to the whole sequence of learning.

If your child is absent from school, please text us by 9.00am on each day of absence.

Safeguarding procedures dictate that parents/carers must inform the school why their child is absent.

We must have 2 contact numbers on record in case we need to contact you.

Levels of attendance at Commonswood are very good.

The Local Authority checks registers regularly and follows up instances of unexplained or persistent absence.

 

Over the summer 2026, the Department for Education introduced updated expectations around attendance, including the expectation that, wherever possible, children attend school before and after medical or dental appointments taking place during the school day.

We appreciate that appointments can sometimes be difficult to arrange outside of school hours and that every family’s circumstances are different. Their aim is simply to support children to miss as little learning time as possible.

Where possible, we would therefore encourage families to:

• bring children into school before a morning appointment and return them to school afterwards;
• send children into school in the morning for an afternoon appointment and return them to school afterwards; and
• consider attending school for part of the day where an appointment is close to the beginning or end of the school day.

Thank you, as always, for your continued support in helping us to promote good attendance and ensure that children make the most of their time at school.