Is your child ill?

Please report absence here.

 Sixth Form Open Evening – Thursday 13 November 2025 from 6.00 pm to 8.00 pm

Attendance Matters

Every child, no matter their starting point or background and no matter their additional and different needs, should have an equitable chance of success at school.

Matt Bromley, CEO and Chair of the Building Equity in Education Campaign, 2025

At TDMS we are committed to supporting all our children and young people to attend school every day as we recognise that being around friends and teachers is the best way for students to learn, reach their potential and succeed in life. That is why, at TDMS, we encourage all our students to aim for 100% attendance.

 Why punctuality and regular attendance matter:

  1. Good lifetime habits: Punctuality and reliability are highly valued by employers, and school is where these habits are formed.
  2. Emotional stability: Routine and consistency reduce anxiety and help students feel settled and secure.
  3. Sense of belonging: Regular attendance builds confidence, helping students feel included, connected and part of a community.
  4. Accelerated progress: Students who attend consistently are better prepared for assessments and benefit from timely feedback.
  5. Access to experts: There is no substitute for being present in class, where explanations, modelling, and rich discussions happen first-hand.
  6. Improved social skills: School provides essential opportunities to develop social skills, teamwork, cooperation, and emotional intelligence.
  7. Equality of opportunity: Being present ensures equal access to subject experts, support and extracurricular opportunities. Absence means missing out, creating inequality.
  8. Improved mental health and wellbeing: Regular attendance reduces stress and anxiety, while missing lessons creates gaps in knowledge, making it harder to keep up and increased pressure.
  9. Higher grades: New learning builds on prior knowledge, so missing key content makes it harder to form the connections needed for mastery. Evidence shows that the students with the highest attendance throughout their time in school gain the best GCSE and A Level results. (Department for Education, 2025).
  10. Future success: Strong attendance leads to better long-term outcomes, including higher achievement, stronger relationships, and greater future opportunities.

ABSENCE MATTERS

Frequent absences can add up quickly and have a significant impact on your child’s progress at school and potentially their future opportunities.

You are legally responsible for ensuring your child’s regular and on-time attendance. We ask you to work with us to promote and reward good attendance and punctuality. 

As parents, you play a vital role in supporting your child to access their education by fostering a culture of commitment to learning. 

To report student absence, please either:

There are only a small number of circumstances where missing a school day is permitted. Your child is expected to attend every day that the school is open, unless your child is genuinely too unwell to attend or due to an emergency only. 

We encourage families to contact us and speak to form tutors, heads of year, and pastoral support staff to discuss any challenges you may face in ensuring your child’s regular attendance.

PUNCTUALITY MATTERS

As well as attendance, punctuality to school and lessons is important. Just a small amount of time missed due to being late has a significant impact over an academic year as shown in the table below:

We expect all students at TDMS to attend school on time every day to maximise their learning potential. Students are expected to be in school, at their year group meeting point by 8.55am. If for any reason students arrive after 9.00am they should report to the Standards Gate, via the bottom school gate, where staff will mark them as late (code L). Students who arrive after 9.25am should report to main reception where staff will mark them as late – after 9.30am this is considered an unauthorised absence (code U). This will affect their attendance percentage and will impact on their learning. For students arriving late to school or lessons, a sanction will also be applied. For further information please refer to our behaviour policy.

We ask that students are on time to both school and lessons to ensure all students receive disruption free learning. Being on time shows respect for their teachers, peers, and the TDMS community.

Sometimes your child may not want to attend school. We understand this and we encourage parents/carers and students to be open and honest with us about the reasons for absence. If your child does not want to attend school, it is never better to cover up their absence or give in to pressure to let your child stay at home. This can give the impression to your child that attendance does not matter and can make things worse. As a school, we need to understand the reasons why your child may not want to attend school so we can support you and your child in the best way possible. For students with medical conditions or other circumstances that may at times prevent regular attendance, we will fully support each student to be able to attend as much as possible. Our school will use an individual health plan and will work alongside other relevant professionals such as health colleagues, and yourselves, to best support them. Please see below a list of just some of the support we offer our students to aid their attendance:

  • Administration of medicine- with your permission 

 

Unexplained or extended absences (3 or more days absent) will trigger safeguarding procedures, which may include home visits and communication with relevant agencies. If our school has any safeguarding concerns about a student who is absent, we will share information with other agencies as we deem necessary to ensure a child’s safety and well-being. Parents/carers should refer to Four Stones Gateway Trust Safeguarding Policy found on each school’s website. If our school is unable to work in partnership with you as parents/carers, we may refer to the Local Authority. We will only ever do this if everything else has failed. We hope as parents/carers you will work with us to best support your child, so this does not need to happen.

We would like to introduce Mrs Hobbs-Beasley our Senior Family Liaison Officer, within her role she acts as the voice between home and school. Having worked at TDMS for many years, Mrs Hobbs-Beasley has built a strong rapport with our students and brings a wealth of experience and compassion to this position. In her role, she will be supporting and mentoring students both within school and out in the community. She’ll also be working closely with families to help overcome any challenges that may affect student attendance and wellbeing.

You may see Mrs Hobbs-Beasley running community workshops or making home visits to offer additional support and complete our statutory safeguarding ‘safe and well checks’. Her presence is part of our ongoing commitment to ensure every child feels supported, valued, and set up for success. We encourage you to work with her to help create the best possible outcomes for your child.

At our school, we are committed to working in partnership with families to support strong attendance. Penalty notices are not issued lightly and are only considered in exceptional circumstances.

Our priority is always to support families and remove barriers to attendance wherever possible. However, where concerns remain unresolved, legal measures such as penalty notices may be necessary.

For further details, please refer to this poster.

 

All our schools follow appropriate procedures when carrying out reasonable enquiries e.g. discussions with the designated safeguarding lead (DSL), relatives, landlords etc to determine whether a child may be at risk of harm. There may be occasion where we have been unable to contact parents/carers after two days and have no information as to the whereabouts of the child. In that case, the school will do a home visit. We inform the local authority of any student who has missed ten school days or more without permission. When appropriate, the school’s DSL will make a referral to social services and/or police.

Unexplained and/or extended absences (3 or more days absent) will trigger safeguarding procedures, which may include home visits and communication with relevant agencies. If our school has any safeguarding concerns about a student who is absent, we will share information with other agencies as we deem necessary to ensure a child’s safety and well-being. Parents/carers should refer to Four Stones Gateway Trust Safeguarding Policy found on each school’s website. If our school is unable to work in partnership with you as parents/carers, we may refer to the Local Authority. We will only ever do this if everything else has failed. We hope as parents/carers you will work with us to best support your child, so this does not need to happen.