Authorised Absence, marked as present on both morning and afternoon registers but attendance percentage affected!

[Annwynwitch]

Hello,
Hopefully someone with experience can help here. I thought that if the child was present at registration, then if I came and took him out for a quick hospital appointment and then brought him straight back, it wouldn't affect his attendance percentage? He was registered present in the morning, I collected him at 10am and then returned him at midday. But I just checked his attendance figures and he has been marked absent and his percentage has dropped. But confused about all this as I'm sure we did similar last year and it didn't affect his percentage. Can any teachers out there explain please? I've emailed school but no reply yet. Many thanks.

An authorised absence is still an absence. Authorised is (for example) when a child is poorly and is recorded as such. It’s authorised (as opposed to unauthorised holiday) but still an absence.

As to why he was marked absent when he was there first thing, maybe the school actions ongoing registration for each lesson and he was marked absent there. And maybe this is a new system since last year to clamp down on students going missing after being present for first reg?

Does it matter very much? Is his general attendance good (by which I mean not 90% – good for an exam but not for attendance – but (say) 98%+)?

At DS school you get a morning and afternoon mark (not sure exactly what times these are recorded) if you are there for these technically you could leave school for the rest of the day and be marked as 100% present. Sounds like your school must do it differently l, just call them and ask, I'm sure they will explain bit really unless your child has a lot of time off it doesn't really matter.

I have no idea why you are worrying about this. As you requested absence they mark it on the attendance register despite being there at 9 and 1 because your child was absent…

Primary School generally has 2 marks - AM & PM, so if a child is present for register at 9am but then has an appointment 10-12, the present mark isn't altered.
Secondary however has a register mark for every period. Different attendance staff mark it different ways ie if present for Registration which is the first mark of the day, the AM mark automatically defaults to present . However if student is absent for 2 out of the 3 periods that make up the morning session, some staff go with the majority mark and therefore alter the AM mark to Authorised Absence.

No clue as to which is correct guidance, just aware thats what occurs!

Remember the percentages look worse at this time of year.

I dont think that can be a blanket rule as that's not how our Secondary does it.