New statutory government guidance relating to improving school attendance came into effect on 19 August 2024. The updated guidance is reflected in the information below.

The full guidance is available here.

Absence from school – Illness

It is important for us to know if a student is not going to be attending school. Therefore, we ask that parents/carers send an email to attendance@swgs.wilts.sch.uk, contact us via parent portal or leave a message on 01722 323326, as soon as possible on the first day of non-attendance, informing us of the reason and expected length of absence.

• Absences must be reported EACH day of absence for safeguarding purposes.
• It is important that the school is notified immediately of any contagious diseases e.g. German measles.
• If your child has a music lesson, you should contact the peripatetic teacher yourself – the school office will not be able to do this for you.
• If no call or email has been received to notify us of your child’s absence, you will be contacted by the Attendance Officers over the course of the day.
• If we are unable to contact you, the school will contact other people named by you as points of contact.
• It is essential that you have:
  –  provided us with more than one point of contact
  –  updated any contact details as soon as they change

Please note: all absences, for which the school has not received notification, will be recorded as unauthorised absence after five days.

Absence from school – Other Reasons

• Permission for a student to be absent from school, including medical appointments, should be requested as far in advance of the event as possible.
• Evidence of an appointment should be emailed to the the Attendance Officer in advance, where possible, or produced on the day at the time of signing out.
• For absence other than a medical appointment, please use the absence request form, available by clicking here. This form is also available in reception.
• The law authorises certain categories of absence and these include: sickness or other unavoidable cause, religious observance and educational visits.
• The guidelines for authorising holidays in term time are very strict and can only include those taken for exceptional reasons. This does not include convenience of flights or cost of holidays. Please give as much detail as possible on the Leave of Absence Form.
• If you take your child out of school for other reasons, this will be unauthorised absence and will be recorded as such.

Requesting of Absence – Penalty Notices

Government guidance about authorising absence in term time is very strict. The reference to granting holiday absence has been removed and so any term time absence can only be authorised in exceptional circumstances.  Schools must now follow the National Penalty Framework as laid out in the statutory guidance.
Penalty notices must be issued if a student accumulates 10 or more unauthorised sessions of absence within a rolling 10-week school period, for this purpose a session is equal to either a morning or an afternoon of school. Here are the more detailed guidelines from Wiltshire Council.

• Wiltshire Council – Click here to find out more information on attendance and behaviour 

For absence other than a medical appointment, please use the absence request form, available here. This form is also available in reception.

Please refer to our Attendance Policy for full details.