Attendance and Absences

Attendance at Hotwells:

At Hotwells Primary School, we believe good school attendance is essential for your child to thrive. We work hard to promote attendance and ensure our children are in school whenever possible. In order to safeguard the children in our school, we have a duty of care to follow up on any unknown absences.

Reporting a Full Absence:

If your child is too unwell to attend school, please report their absence before 9:00am on the first day of absence using one of the following methods:

Phone: Call the School Office on 0117 9030044
Email: Send details to admin@hotwellsprimaryschool.org

The School Office will investigate any unexplained absences by contacting parents/carers by phone or text on the first day of absence.

Sending Your Child to School Unwell or Requiring Medication:

If your child is feeling slightly under the weather or requires medication during the school day, we are happy to help so they don't have to miss out on learning.

Our staff have completed formal training in the administration of medication to ensure your child receives safe and proper care while at school.

If you would like us to administer medication (including Calpol or prescribed medicine) or simply keep a close eye on your child during the day, please follow these steps:

Complete the Online Form: Fill in our Under the Weather Form prior to drop-off to provide consent and specific dosage instructions.
Bring the Medication: Bring your child into school along with the medication (clearly labeled with your child's name and dosage) and hand it directly to a member of staff at the office or drop-off.

Why use this form?:

Completing this form gives our trained staff formal written consent and clear instructions, creating an updated, proactive record for every child receiving care or medication during the school day.

Is Your Child Too Ill for School?:

By law, children must attend school every day unless they are genuinely too unwell. If you are unsure whether your child should stay home or come in with monitoring, please refer to the NHS guidance below:

You can also consult the official NHS guide online: NHS - Is my child too ill for school?

Exceptional Absences:

The Head Teacher has the authority to allow a child to be absent from school in exceptional circumstances. Please contact the office to submit a formal request for planned absence.

The Importance of Good Attendance:

At Hotwells, we recognise and value the importance of good attendance at school and the impact this has on children's progress, attainment, enjoyment of and relationships within school.

Attendance that falls below 90% is categorised as 'persistent absence' and is the equivalent of half a day absence every week. We have a duty to ensure that children are attending school regularly and to support families with improving attendance. We track children's attendance weekly and if this becomes a concern we will notify you by text, by letter or by inviting you in for a meeting so that we can work together to ensure that children are not missing learning time.

Our School Day:

The school gate opens at 8:40am and closes at 8:50am. The school day and ends at 3:20pm. This is a total of 6.5 hours a day (which includes breaks and lunchtime). In a typical week the total time this amounts to is 32.5 hours.

Holiday Requests:

All requests for term-time absence should be made in writing and in advance using the form below. Requests can either be handed in to the School Office or emailed to admin@hotwellsprimaryschool.org. Term-time holidays will not be authorised unless there are exceptional circumstances. Unauthorised absences of 10 or more sessions could result in you receiving a penalty notice from the council in relation to the absence. More information can be found on this below.

Absence Request Form

Penalty Notice Information:

The Department for Education have specified that Schools can only authorise absence for “exceptional” circumstances and so holidays in term time will not normally be authorised. Unauthorised absence may result in the issue of a penalty notice. Guidance is provided from Bristol City Council below:

If you have any questions about attendance or require any support, please speak to our attendance leads, Emily Allen and Helen Faulkner.