Attendance

If you require to report your child’s absence, please call the school on 01204 33 33 00 by 8am for every day of absence. For longer periods of absence, our Attendance Team will be in touch and they may require a home visit. 

For medical appointments, or other reasons your child may be absent from school - please email, with accompanying evidence, to attendance@little-lever.bolton.sch.uk

Our full Attendance and Punctuality policy can be found on our Policies and Reports Page. 

Little Lever School strives to ‘help every person achieve things they never thought they could’, and recognises that for students to achieve their potential, they must have excellent attendance and punctuality. Little Lever School aspires for all students to have 100% attendance. 

Improving attendance is everyone’s business. The barriers to accessing education are wide and complex, both within and beyond the school gates, and are often specific to individual students and families. The foundation of securing good attendance is that the school is a calm, orderly, safe and supportive environment, where all students want to be and are keen and ready to learn. 

We are here to work with students and parents/carers to ensure that every child has the opportunity to access learning and a safe supportive environment that students are happy to be part of. We believe that being in school every day helps children:

  • Build friendships and social skills.
  • Develop routines and resilience.
  • Access the full curriculum and achieve their potential

Our Attendance Framework

Little Lever School believes that all stakeholders should be clear with regards to what to expect should a student’s attendance fall below our attendance thresholds.

Working together to improve school attendance (DfE, August 2024) makes clear that all parties; including schools, parents, multi-academy trusts and local authorities should place a strong emphasis on school attendance.

All students are expected to attend every session, but where a student’s attendance falls below our thresholds of 96%, or if anomalous patterns of attendance are discovered, our attendance procedures will be instigated according to the Little Lever activation tier shown in the table below:

A complete breakdown on actions taken at each stage of the above table, can be found in our Attendance and Punctuality Policy.

PUNCTUALITY

Being on time (punctual), is just as important as being in school every day. Punctuality is a great life skill for all students to practise and take into later life. At Little Lever School we share regularly the importance of punctuality. Key information to know about our start times of the day, and how punctuality can also affect recorded attendance is below.

 School starts at 8:30am. Students are welcome to arrive from 8am where breakfast is available in the canteen. Arrival at school after 8:30am will result in a late correction. 

 

 

 

Registers close at 9am. Students who arrive after 9am will receive an absent mark for that morning (half a day). The Department for Education states we must consider fines for repeated lateness. 

 

 

Our commitment at Little Lever School is to support students and families, and we understand that every child is different, and we are here to help:

  • We will work with you to support children with medical conditions or anxiety.
  • We can offer pastoral support, access to the school nurse, and referrals to external services if needed. 
  • We will help your child catch up on missed learning and stay connected with their peers.

We have a dedicated Attendance Team at school. All general enquiries should initially be directed to attendance@little-lever.bolton.sch.uk - our team will be in contact with you either via phone, email or home visit. 

The team consists of:

  • Mr S Cordwell: Assistant Principal and Strategic Lead on Attendance
  • Ms J Charlton: Attendance Lead and Education Welfare Officer
  • Ms L Yoganali: Attendance Co-ordinator 
  • Ms H Vining: Attendance Administrator 

Attendance can also be discussed with your child’s Learning Leader or PREP Tutor in the first instance.

 

According to the NHS, children should stay off school if they: 

  • Have a high temperature (above 38°C).
  • Have vomiting or diarrhoea – they should stay home for 24 hours after the last episode.
  • Have chickenpox – stay home until all spots have crusted over (usually 5 days).
  • Have measles, scarlet fever, or impetigo – follow NHS advice and treatment timelines.
  • Are too unwell to participate in normal activities.

Children can usually attend school if they:

  • Have a mild cough, sore throat, or runny nose, and no high temperature.
  • Have cold sores, conjunctivitis, head lice, threadworms, or slapped cheek syndrome, unless they are feeling very unwell.

Are experiencing mild anxiety or worry – being in school can help ease these feelings. For a full list of conditions and guidance, please refer to the NHS website: Is my child too ill for school?

Little Lever School sets high expectations for attendance and punctuality of all pupils and we community this regularly to students each week during Student Briefing and also to parents/carers through appropriate channels. 

We will visibly demonstrate the benefits of good attendance throughout school life. This may include in displays, assemblies or in registration periods. Where used sensitively and without discrimination, this will also include praising and rewarding strong attendance and importantly, improvements in attendance. 

Here are some examples of how we track, share and reward great attendance and attendance improvements:

  • The Step- Up Challenge: During Monday Prep Time this is as an opportunity for tutors to discuss attendance with their form. Within this time the Step-Up Challenge sheets are completed, and students mark off the number of lessons (steps) they have attended the week before making their way to their aspirational target. Where lessons have been missed, students will track their actions to catch-up in this session.
  • The 100 Club: Rewards students and incentivises maintaining a 100% attendance within a term even if there were absences before. Weekly rewards are advertised to students in advance with their value increasing throughout the term. The longer a student has a continuance ‘streak’ of attendance, the better their reward. The 100 Club resets every half term to maintain a fair chance for ALL students to achieve rewards each half term. 

The Magic 15: Rewards students each week for attending every session, every day with 5 achievement points. This list is published for students to see and a weekly news post is published on our website and social media channels to celebrate the number of students achieving the Magic 15.