Attendance, Appointments and Holidays

Attendance at lessons is a basic requirement of learning, and will be a key focus when monitoring student progress. Monitoring student attendance and responding to absence is the responsibility of all teaching staff and personal tutors.

Prompt intervention and response to student absence is crucial: timely support will help students to stay on course and improve retention. For some students, referral to Support for Learning, the Attendance Mentor, a Study Mentor and/or Student Support (to access pastoral services) will be part of this.

The College sets out in the Student Code of Conduct clear expectations of students in relation to attendance and punctuality. The link between attendance and achievement is emphasised to individual students at all stages. Students are expected to attend and be punctual for all lessons and tutorial sessions (i.e. 0% unauthorised absence). Reasons for absence/lateness must be reported to the College and/or explained to staff.

Students or parents are expected to contact the College prior to the absence on each and every day that they are absent, unless it is a long-term absence of which the College is aware. All absences will be classed as ‘unauthorised’ unless there is a valid reason. It is the responsibility of the student/parent to ask for absences to be authorised, and Student Services will make judgements case by case. A form notifying the College of known/planned absences such as family holidays is available from Student Support. This ‘Planned Absence Form’ can also be used to request that an absence resulting from, for example, a medical appointment or a funeral be authorised. Students are not expected to take holidays in term time. The calendar of dates for the College shows that students have fourteen weeks’ leave and they are expected to take their holidays at these times. Holidays in term time are very strongly discouraged and will almost certainly be classed as ‘unauthorised’.

Information about attendance patterns will be available to staff on ProMonitor / IRIS so that any inconsistencies, worrying patterns of attendance etc. can be highlighted and discussed with the student. Parents/guardians will have up-to-date attendance information at all times on ProPortal (the Parent Portal), and text messages sent to the parent’s mobile phone will refer them to ProPortal.

Punctuality is a key aspect of attendance, and prepares students for life outside College. We have a ‘Knock and Wait’ policy for students arriving to lessons late. It is College policy that students arriving more than 5 minutes late to a lesson are marked in the register as ‘late’ (L). If a student arrives at a lesson more than 10 minutes late, they are marked as ‘very late’ (V) and the number of minutes is recorded.