Attendance
At Orsett Heath Academy, the staff endeavours to provide an excellent learning environment and experience for their pupils.
We aim to get the most out of everyday through challenging and supported learning in a stimulating working environment. We hope that for those pupils who attend school every day that school is a thoroughly worthwhile and rewarding experience.
There are very obvious benefits that come to pupils who have an attendance figure of 98% and above over those who do not. As well as setting up a positive routine and attitude towards life these young people rarely miss out. Every day there is a opportunity to learn something new, whether it is knowledge or a skill. They get to interact with their peers and teachers and learn through a consistent and unbroken experience. The statistics support this view. The highest attending students gain better examination results, especially now there is a revised assessment system being used at the end of KS4 (GCSEs). The modular approach where the pupils took a series of exams of over the two years and the opportunity to re-take several times has now ended for most subjects. This means the whole of the two year courses are assessed with an examination at the end of the course. This means time regularly missed by a pupil through non-attendance of school can have serious repercussions; for example; incomplete topics through missed lessons are likely to feature on the exam papers at the end of Year 11 which undoubtedly puts a child at a disadvantage to another who did not miss those lessons.