Attendance - What should I do if my child is unwell?

Wherever possible, we want children to be attending well. However, there are rare occasions when your child will not be well enough to attend school. Please remember that medical advice can also be gained from telephoning 111 or speaking to your local pharmacy. The nearest minor injury centre to school is Chard MIU Urgent treatment centres (UTC) - Somerset NHS Foundation Trust

If a child is absent from school the parent/carer must follow these procedures:

1.    Ensure your parent/carer and emergency contact information is up to date on our system. You can inform us of any changes by emailing the school office [email protected] or taking any change of details into either school office.

2.    Contact the school on the first day of absence before before 8.50am for Silver St pupils and 9.00am for Ditton St pupils providing your child’s name and class and the reason for their absence, it is not acceptable using just ill/unwell.

If you leave a voicemail to report your child’s absence, you may receive a call from the school to discuss the absence to ensure it is coded correctly on their register.

3.    Contact the school on every further day of absence before 8.50am for Silver St pupils and 9.00am for Ditton St pupils providing your child’s name and class and the reasons for their ongoing absence.

4.    Minimise absence by ensuring your child returns to school as soon as possible. In some cases, your child may be well enough to come into school later in the day.

5.    Provide any further information to support your child’s absence if requested to by our team.

We may request medical evidence if your child is having multiple periods of absence which are reported as being due to medical reasons. When deciding whether a child is too ill to attend school, both parents and school staff can consider the advice contained with NHS guidance on illness and school attendance.

If your child is absent and we haven't heard from parents/carers, we will:

1.    Email you on the first, and every subsequent day of absence, if you have failed to inform us of the reason for your child’s absence.

2.    If we are unable to contact you by email, we will telephone emergency contact numbers. In the interests of safeguarding all our pupils, a home visit may also be conducted.

3.    A referral will be made to Local Authority if no contact has been made with parents by the tenth consecutive day of absence (or sooner if deemed appropriate), and we are unable to verify your whereabouts. At this point your child will be a Child Missing from Education (CME).