Almost all of the time it is lovely to be a headteacher! But occasionally I get told off by parents – and most often it is when I rattle on about attendance!
When I arrived at the school in 2006, we had below average attendance and that was like a big arrow pointing at the school and saying “not a very good school” which isn’t a nice label. I know people will struggle to believe it, but some parents would keep children off for a morning just because they had overlaid an hour, or if the children had a medical appointment or if the children had had a late night… We now have a better level of attendance than any school for miles around – and we have increasing numbers joining the school, we also have fantastic results in SATs because children attend school so well and therefore learn so well. Every attendance is important just as every lesson is important – which is why I have helped parents out in the past by picking up children, and why we do so much to encourage children to attend with certificates and mars bars! If a child does not come to school, and a parent does not ring up and let us know (this happens very rarely) and then a parent does not answer the phone, I will often come to the house – this is partly so that we can make sure that we know why someone is away, but also to make sure that a child is safe – imagine how everyone would feel if a child hadn’t come to school, if school hadn’t found out why and if some harm had come to that child!
Parents occasionally say to me that I am only interested in attendance – this isn’t true; I want children to love coming to school, I want them to love learning, I want them to fulfil their potential. I want parents to feel that they are part of a team working with school staff to the benefit of their children. So although attendance is important to me, it is only one of a number of things that matter. When Ofsted inspectors come again (which will be soon) they will judge us partly on attendance, so it is important that we do everything that we can to make it a postive aspect of the school’s performance. Our attendance at the moment is excellent – and it is something that every child, every parent/carer and every member of staff should take pride in.