Term Dates, Attendance and Holidays

Term Dates
Term dates for the academic year 2024 - 2025 can be downloaded below.
 
Our INSET (Teacher training) days for 2024 - 2025 are:
 
Monday 2nd September 2024
Tuesday 3rd September 2024
Friday 25th October 2024
Friday 21st February 2025

Attendance

Good attendance is vital for children to achieve well and be happy at school. Children who are absent regularly may fall behind or be unhappy coming to school. It is part of our school ethos that good attendance is expected and rewarded.

If your child has better than 97% attendance at school they are doing well. The national average is about 95%.

Children with 80% attendance will miss an average of one day a week and two years of school by the time they are in Year 11.

Similarly, attendance of 90% may sound good but it is still half a day a week and a year of missed education by the time they are 16. We don’t need to explain how difficult it can be for some children to make up for a year of lost time.

Your child should not be kept away from school:

  • to visit relatives
  • for long weekends
  • for shopping trips
  • for birthday treats

As a School, we will inform you if:

  • your child is not attending
  • your child is frequently late

Term Time Holidays

Under new guidance from the DfE, any request for a holiday during term time must be authorised by the school and we are only allowed to authorise term time holidays in exceptional circumstances. 

Any parent who takes their child on holiday without authorisation may receive a Penalty Notice and a possible fine.

Leave of absence requests forms are available from the school office.

 

Absences

If your child is not present at school by 9:30 on the first day of absence please

  • phone the school on 01434 603467
  • send an email admin@hexhamfirst.co.uk

It is important that we know where your child is. We will phone you if we are unsure as to why your child is absent.  

 School Attendance Data

Overall absence data for individual schools can be found on the performance tables website (link attached below), which is run by the DfE. You can search for schools by their type, postcode, name, town or region.

https://www.compare-school-performance.service.gov.uk/