Deliberately missing education is regarded as educational neglect: by not making sure that your child receives an appropriate education on the 190 days per year that they are required to be present in school. This is a key safeguarding issue in schools and links heavily to the reasons why staff at OLOL chase parents for evidence supporting absences from school. Parents must resist any urge to let their child have a day off without good reason, and get them into school. If there are concerns or issues, please bring them too us to work with you on solving them.

Children missing education are at risk of:

• Educational underachievement
• Missing out on required SEND support
• Higher risk or engaging in future criminal activity such as County Lines
• Higher risk of future substance misuse
• Limiting opportunities to reach preferred employment potential in future

At OLOL:

• All OLOL pupils should have high attendance and be on time for school everyday
• Every day missed at OLOL is 5 lessons lost that may not be repeated, if you multiply this by the number of days off school this can result in significant damage to learning
• Non-attendance at school can result in legal action and fines for each parent separately
• Where we have reason to suspect that parents are deliberately keeping their children off school for non-authorised reasons, we may make safeguarding referrals to Birmingham Children’s Trust

At OLOL, we have a responsibility to protect your child from all forms of neglect and to insist that your child is in school and on time every day that they are well enough to be here. We draw parent’s attention to our attendance and safeguarding policies for more information.