Fulham Primary School wants each and every child to have the best possible attendance at school to enable them to reach their full potential. There is a strong link between good school attendance and achieving good results for children. Children who frequently miss school may fall behind in their work which may affect their future prospects. Absence may also have an effect on friendships. At Fulham Primary School we work closely with families to support them to achieve the best possible outcomes for their children.
Ofsted also strongly supports the idea that attendance has a real impact on children reaching their potential and due to this attendance is very much thought about when schools are inspected. Did you know that schools can actually be judged as inadequate if attendance is consistently low, and there is little sign of sustained improvement?
Currently we celebrate good attendance in a variety of ways:
We celebrate class attendance weekly in our Friday assemblies, where the classes are in a race to see who gets the best whole school attendance. The class that wins gets a prize at the end of the year.
This initiative is very popular with the children.
We also celebrate 100% attendance termly as well as those who have had one day, and two days off. This gives the children three opportunities a year to receive an attendance award.
We use different prizes for this initiative including cinema trips and ice cream parties, as well as others.
We know these initiatives work as our attendance at Fulham Primary School has gone from strength to strength.
Over the last 10 years our attendance at Fulham Primary School has consistently risen from 89% to over 96% today! That is incredible! We believe our real focus on attendance, and the community at Fulham Primary’s support of these strategies that has encouraged this to happen.
We welcome your ideas and comments about current initiatives, and any changes you feel might build on successes and improve the process currently in place.
Please submit all ideas and comments in writing to the school office for both the school and the PTA to consider.