Attendance
Galton Valley Primary School expects the highest attendance and punctuality from all children at all times, so that children can fulfill their potential. We support children and families to ensure that excellent attendance is achieved. Regular attendance also encourages children to build friendships, work together as a whole team, share ideas and develop life skills. The school sees 95% attendance as the minimum expectation for all pupils and strives for all pupils to attend more than 95% of the time.
The times of the start and close of the school day for pupils are:
Gates open: 8.35am
School doors open: 8:45am
Registration starts: 8.50am
Registration closes: 9:20am
End of the school day: 3.20pm
Process for Reporting your child's absence
The pupil’s parent/carer must notify the school on the first day of an unplanned absence by 8.45am or as soon as practically possible. Parents can contact the school via telephone (0121 558 1690), emailing the school office on galton.office@gvps.sandwell.sch.uk or in person at the school office. We will mark absence due to illness as authorised unless the school has a genuine concern about the authenticity of the illness. If the authenticity of the illness is in doubt, the school may ask the pupil’s parent/carer to provide medical evidence, such as a doctor’s note, prescription, appointment card or other appropriate form of evidence. We will not ask for medical evidence unnecessarily. If the school is not satisfied about the authenticity of the illness, the absence will be recorded as unauthorised and parents/carers will be notified of this in advance.
Where a parent has given a reason for absence then the following steps will (generally) be taken:
Day 1: Parent has contacted the school or class teacher to explain the absence
Day 2-4: Parent has continued to contact school or the school office has made contact via a telephone call
Day 4-10: Continued contact with parents (where an update is needed) by school with parents. This may include emailing parents. As part of a supportive measure, school may conduct a home visit via the school's attendance consultant (Mrs D Thompson).
If this process isn’t followed the school will contact the absent child’s parent to ascertain why they are not in school. When a parent hasn’t notified school of their child’s absence, or hasn’t provided a reason, then the absence will be unauthorised.
Leave of Absence
Leave of Absence requests can only be granted by the Head Teacher where the reason is deemed an exceptional circumstance. In order to request a Leave of Absence, the following procedure must be followed.