Student exceptional leave
National Star has high aspirations around your young person’s progress at college, and we have also set a high expectation around attendance. Whilst we aim for excellent levels of attendance at college, we do understand, that due to illness or exceptional circumstances, parents or carers may need to request time away from college for your young person.
Safeguarding our students is a key requirement at National Star and it is our responsibility to know when students are not in college, even if it is for a short external appointment.
Absences from college may be for medical appointments, illness, occasional weekend leave or a significant special occasion.
We review each absence request individually and will determine whether leave is authorised or not. This will be communicated back to the requester by your young person’s PLC(T) (Personalised Learning Co-ordinator/ Tutor), and where the absence is not authorised, an email will also be sent.
For all planned occasions, we ask you to complete an ‘Exceptional leave’ request form.
Please view our guidance and enter the form below.
Funding and absences
Funding for term time residential students includes the cost of staying at college at the weekends. We are obliged to log and inform funding authorities of all absences. Your funding authority realises that some absence from college may be unavoidable, however, regular or unauthorised absences may impact your funding and could affect your young person’s placement with us.
Authorised absences from college
Authorised absences from college include medical appointments and admissions, illness, occasional weekend leave and significant special occasions, such as a family wedding (a leisure-based holiday is not considered a reason for an authorised absence). Requests for authorised absences will be considered on an individual basis, taking into account previous absence and the reason for the request.
Absence from college should be requested with as much notice as possible and requires at least three days’ advance notice (except in emergency situations), which must be approved.
If you need help completing this form please contact your young person’s personal learning coordinator (PLC).
Exceptional circumstances
We recognise that there may be other instances when an absence from college might be unavoidable. Please provide as much detail as possible so that we can understand the circumstances fully to enable us to make an informed decision.
Requests for exceptional needs to be made as soon as possible via the form below.