---
title: "Attendance Letter"
url: "https://belfield.rochdale.sch.uk/news/2018-11-01-attendance-letter"
school: "Belfield Community School"
---

# Attendance Letter

  ![Image of Attendance Letter](https://files.schudio.com/belfield-community-school/images/news/attendance_matters.png)  1 November 2018

Dear parents and carers

We would like to talk to you about attendance. Unfortunately, over the last 3 years we have seen our attendance decrease, going down to 94.7% last year. This doesn’t sound too bad, but it is below the National Average and so obviously causes a concern.

**During 2017/18, children lost 486 days of learning due to Extended Leave and holidays.**

**Incredibly, they** **lost 1600 days of learning due to illnesses, across the school.**

This is a huge amount of time, that our children can never get back – imagine how much learning they have missed out on if they have had even a few days off.

Obviously, if your child is poorly (ie has a tummy bug, chicken pox etc) they need to be at home until they are well enough to be back in school. This is not a problem.

But we are finding that we are getting a lot of children who have odd days off with colds, coughs and minor ailments. Please think really carefully before keeping your child off school – every minute matters!

We have recently spoken to governors about the 48 hour rule that we have in place regarding children being sick. Currently, if a child is sick, we ask you to wait 48hrs before allowing them to come back to school. **We have now, alongside many other schools, decided to reduce this to 24 hours.**

This will mean that if your child is sick once, perhaps because of something they have eaten or a slightly upset tummy, they can come back to school the next day. **However, if they have been repeatedly sick and it is a tummy bug or virus, the 48 hour rule would still apply.**

We know that the majority of our children are in school nearly every day and that parents take their children’s education very seriously. Let’s work together to: get our attendance figure up; get more of our children in school 100% of the time and help our children make the most progress they can.

If you have a medical concern about your child which is affecting their attendance, do call into school and see if we can support you – we may be able to put you in touch with a school nurse.

Many thanks and if you have any questions, please call in and speak to the office staff, Mrs Harper, myself or Mrs Farrell.

Thank-you for your continued support

Miss Wilson

  [attendance](https://belfield.rochdale.sch.uk/news/tag/attendance)

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   **Belfield Community School**
Samson Street
Rochdale
OL16 2XW
Tel: 01706 341363
Fax: 01706 341363

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