We do appreciate that the vast majority of children want to be in school as much as they can, that parents/carers want them to be here, but that sometimes ill health is a barrier to that. We also know that a very small number of children don’t enjoy being in school so much and that this can present challenges as a parent. We’ll always try to be supportive. Attendance recently has been a concern, but is picking up again nicely. For this; thank you!
We’ve decided to try to ‘bed-in’ the recent improvement by running an extra incentive for a few weeks. The exact format is to be decided but will involve some sort of weekly draw that, over those weeks, everyone will have a chance to win. The prize looks likely to be some sort of hamper for the family of each week’s wining child. It’s a bit of fun – the children who remember when we used to do this a few years back have been nagging us to reinstate it ever since!
Top and bottom of it will be, the more a child can be in school, the more chance they’ll have to win! It’ll be a lottery of some type, so luck will come into it. We’ll ‘load’ it though so that high attendance helps. We’ll take account of children who are vulnerable to long-term conditions and other such things and make it as fair as we can for them..
Of course, it remains that the best incentive to be in school is to be able to learn, have fun, feel safe and enjoy being with your friends.
Whatever we finally decide to calculate will be reset each week, so each week is a fresh start. First draw – this Friday! We’ll let you know the outcome…