Willington
Primary School

School Holidays and Attendance

Our school holiday dates are listed in the document below:

School Term Dates 2023/2024

Please visit the Durham County Council website to view or download the school holidays dates for this academic year and next year for all community schools, special schools and voluntary controlled schools. Please note that voluntary aided (church) schools, foundation schools and academies may have set different dates and you should check with the school or academy to confirm their arrangements or view the PDF for schools not following the standard term and holiday dates.

Attendance and holidays during term time

Good attendance is vital if children are to make good progress with their learning.  It is therefore very important to ensure that all unnecessary absences are eliminated.  Parents are requested to inform school on the first day of a child’s absence. Failure to do this by 9.05am will result in a follow-up text message/telephone call by school.  This procedure ensures that we know the whereabouts of all the children in our care. The children’s safety is our primary concern and we hope parents will co-operate with this request.

The DfE amended the regulations relating to attendance for all schools in September 2013. Headteachers have the discretion to grant leave for a pupil in term time, but they should only do so in exceptional circumstances. If a headteacher grants a leave request, it will be for them to determine the length of time that the child can be away from school. This leave is unlikely, however, to be granted for the purposes of a family holiday. The Local Authority is able to issue penalty notices (fines) to parents who fail to ensure their children’s regular attendance at school. Fines are £60 for each child and are issued to each parent. The fines must be paid within 21 days of being issued otherwise the fines will double and will need to be paid within 28 days of being issued.

An absence request form must be completed for any proposed absence during term time (including family holidays).

Medical issues and first aid

We do appreciate the difficulty of arranging medical and dental appointments, but, if at all possible, please arrange non-urgent appointments outside of school times.  In cases where children have an important medical or dental appointment during school hours parents must inform school. If children have to leave school during normal school hours then an adult must come to collect them and sign them out. Children will not be permitted to leave school unaccompanied.

Minor injuries will be dealt with in school by a member of staff who is first aid trained. In cases of more serious injury or illness parents will be contacted immediately.

Parents are asked to complete a school medicine consent form if their child needs prescribed medicine during the school day. We are not able to administer non-prescribed medicines.

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Privacy Policy

We regard your privacy as important and any personal information you give to us will be used in accordance with the Data Protection Act and the General Data Protection Regulations.

We do not store personal information about individuals who visit this site except where they provide contact information via our contact us page and contact forms available on various pages throughout the website.

Any information you provide will only be used for the reasons specified and it will not be shared with any third party without your consent, unless required by law.

Your contact details are kept securely and are only accessed by authorised members of staff as part of the provision of school services. If you do not wish us to keep this contact information please tell us.

This website uses Google Analytics which provides statistical data about the usage of the site. This information is not used to identify individuals, but is collected to provide us with an understanding of the areas of interest on our site and how our site is being used.

If you are connected to the internet you will have an IP Address. This may take the form of a figure, such as 333.333.22.1. The address will be automatically collected and logged as part of the connection of your computer to our web server and may be used to determine the total number of visits to each part of the site. This data is not collected and used for other purposes.

This website contains links to other websites. The School is not responsible for the privacy practices of other sites or organisations and recommends you consult the privacy information on those sites.

This policy will be reviewed and updated versions will be posted on the website.

If you have any questions about the use of your personal information, the Information Commissioner is the independent regulator for both Data Protection and Freedom of Information.