Attendance Update August 2025

As we welcome all pupils back to school we continue to prioritise school attendance.

Regular and timely school attendance has been proven to be one of the strongest indicators of a young person’s engagement in learning and future success in employment and further education.

We want to support every young person to be in school as much as possible and to be on time when they attend. We acknowledge that for some regular school attendance is a challenge and we also acknowledge that for some there needs to be a consequence to support their engagement with attending school on time.

We know from talking to parents/carers that attending school is a priority for you and every parent/carer wants their young person to be in school and to be learning.

Firstly, we want to make reporting absence easier. Mornings can be busy with commuting to work and dropping off other children at school, so we have introduced an online absence reporting system for parents/carers to use quickly. A confirmation text will be sent to you on the morning of absence to confirm we have received your absence message. You can still call the school on 0131 442 2201 or report absence by email to admin@whec.edin.sch.uk 

The online absence reporting can be found on the school website or in the text you received on Monday 1^st September.

Secondly, although the start of the school term we have found that lateness is already issue. Most school lateness is not ‘chronic’ but on average 30 pupils are late to school every day by up to 12 minutes. This is disruptive to the classroom teaching that has already begun, and pupils often then avoid P1 completely. As most lateness occurs within in a timeframe that can be easily adjusted by the pupil we are going to support attending school on time. We will support this by instigating a break time detention supported by our PSO Lauren Auld. We would hope with the immediate consequence of the loss of a social time pupils will be able to attend on time.

Lastly, we want to better understand and try to support the reasons for school non-attendance. Whatever the reason we can signpost supports and look to make reasonable adjustments to support your child to attend school. All parents/carers are therefore requested to complete a questionnaire online at your convenience on School Attendance: https://forms.office.com/e/89XVahgadK

Hopefully, with these small steps we can make a sizeable difference to school attendance. Your support is appreciated in this matter and please do not hesitate to contact the school with any further supports needed to help our pupils attend regularly and on time.