Attendance and Punctuality

At The Lowry Academy, the achievement of good attendance and punctuality is one of our highest priorities. This is because a student’s attendance has a huge impact on their overall educational opportunities and students with poor attendance will rarely achieve close to their full potential. We as an academy expect all our students to achieve 100% attendance each academic year. 

As parents / carers, you share the responsibility with us to ensure your child is in school every day, punctual and has access to the education which they are entitled to. We take a zero-tolerance approach to unauthorised absence and as such, holidays during term time will not be authorised unless in exceptional circumstances and agreed with the principal. Unauthorised absences will be closely monitored by the Whole School Attendance Lead and penalty notices will be issued to those with unauthorised absences. 

If you need to report your child absent, you must inform the school before 8:30am and log this with the Attendance Team. Please see below ways you can report your child’s absence.

Important things parents should know

As a parent, you have a legal responsibility to make sure that your child receives full-time education between the ages of 5 and 16.  

• If your child’s attendance begins to drop, a member of the pastoral team will contact home to discuss the problem, we are here to help you. 
• Students are regularly awarded for good attendance – this includes merit points, prizes, rewards trips etc 
• You can be fined up to £2,500 or imprisoned if your child has a poor attendance record. 
• You could be given a Parenting order, which means you will have to attend a parenting class. 
• You may be issued with a Penalty Notice of £120.00 (£60 if paid within 21 days). 
• If a child has 90% attendance, it is the equivalent of missing 4 whole weeks in 1 school year. 
• Over 5 years this is the equivalent of missing HALF a school year. 
• Missing just 17 days in one year can mean dropping a full grade at GCSE. 
• 5 or more GCSE passes can increase wages by 42%. 
• A child on holiday for 2 weeks during term time will miss 50 one-hour lessons. Some never catch up. 
• Being late 10 minutes each day for one year is equal to missing approximately 6 school days.