In the instance of your child being absent from school please complete this contact form at your earliest convenience.

In order to live a life in all its fullness, The Bishop of Hereford’s Bluecoat School recognises that:

Students should attend school regularly to learn, to socialise with friends and prepare themselves fully to take their place in society as well rounded and responsible citizens with the skills, knowledge and understanding necessary to contribute to the life and prosperity of the community.

There is a clear link between student achievement and their level of attendance at school. We want all our students to achieve the very best they can and for this they need to be in school regularly and on time.

• Late arrival disrupts the education not only of the student who is late but also of others in the class.
• It is the legal responsibility of parents/carers to ensure their child attends the school where they are on roll.
• Some students and their parents/carers may need to be supported at times in meeting their attendance obligations and responsibilities.

We are committed to meeting our obligations with regards to school attendance by:

• Promoting good attendance and reducing absence, including persistent absence
• Ensuring every student has access to full-time education to which they are entitled
• Acting early to address patterns of absence

We will also support parents to perform their legal duty to ensure their children of compulsory school age attend regularly, and will promote and support punctuality in attending lessons.

The Bishop of Hereford’s Bluecoat School aims to achieve attendance of at least 95% annually.

We are currently trialling a number of initiatives that may not feature in our Attendance procedures. These include:

• Phone calls home from mentors on first day of absence 
• Letters sent home with guidance to support high attendance
• Regular updates if a child is persistently absent (missing 1 day in every 10)
• 'Goalseeker' letters sent home detailing the amount of lessons missed for persistently absent students. These also provide the number of days that need to be attended in a row, for a student to move out of the persistently absent category.