Sent to all parents and carers on 26/09/24
Internal Truancy
‘Internal truancy’ describes children who are attending school and staying on site during school hours, but avoiding certain lessons or, in some cases, the majority of their lessons, choosing instead to walk the corridors or roam the school site, sometimes in groups.
At Westbourne we believe that both regular and punctual attendance are vital in preparing our students for not only achieving their full potential academically, but also preparing them for adult life and the working world.
We are very fortunate that the vast majority of our students follow our high expectations; working hard to meet our STAR values of being safe, thoughtful, accountable and respectful.
Unfortunately, we also have a core group of students who are not being accountable for attending lessons regularly without a valid reason and who are disrupting the smooth running of our academy community. These students present a safeguarding risk as we do not always know where they are.
Our focus is on reducing the amount of internal truancy by this small group of students. The approach to this will be shared with students this afternoon and will be reiterated during tutor time tomorrow morning as well. Below is a summary of the information shared with students and the processes we will follow for internal truancy from the start of next week:
- Students arriving after the 5-minute warning bell sounds to lessons are marked as L (late)
- Safeguarding classroom registers are completed by staff within the first 5-10 minutes of every lesson. If a student is not present at this point, they will be marked as N (not in lesson)
- If a student is not present, an MCAS message will be sent home to the parents/carers of these students
- Any student refusing and still not in their lesson without a valid reason by this time will be suspended
- Should a student decide to do the right thing by going to their lesson, they will be marked as L (late).
As you can appreciate, it is vital that we hold accurate and up to date contact details for parents/carers and other priority contacts, should we need to contact you in this instance, or indeed any other emergency situation. If you need to update your contact information you can do this through the MCAS app or you can email wes-office@attrust.org.uk.
Please refer to the guidance here for reporting your child’s past, present or future absence:
Absence Reporting – Westbourne Academy (attrust.org.uk)
If you have not already done so, please download the MyChildAtSchool (MCAS) app onto your mobile phone to ensure that you have all the information you need regarding your child’s performance at school. The guidance to support you with this can be found here.
If you have difficulties in logging into MCAS please email wes-office@attrust.org.uk or come along to our Tuesday Parent/Carer Drop-in Clinics in Reception at 11:20-12:00 for assistance in person.
Your support in discussing the attendance expectations is valued in ensuring we are safeguarding your child.
Kind regards
Mr M Higgon
Principal
Academy vision: Westbourne is an inclusive academy. We support all students, regardless of starting point, to achieve their potential and develop the skills necessary for employment and life.
Academy values: Be Safe, Be Thoughtful, Be Accountable and Be Respectful.
General queries to: wes-office@attrust.org.uk or 01473 742315
Attendance or Absence queries to: wes-attendance@attrust.org.uk
Exam queries to: anna.fulcher@attrust.org.uk
Online payments and data information queries to: wes-data@attrust.org.uk
SEND queries to: opal.degville@attrust.org.uk
