Positive attendance at school is strongly correlated with positive school performance. Like most schools, ISB monitors attendance in order to support students academic performance and account for their safety. By keeping accurate records, we are able to provide quality, factual data to parents, students, and teachers regarding the whereabouts of students and their Habits and Attitudes for Learning. Important lessons of punctuality and responsibility are learned in middle school – so valuable for children’s future in high school and the workplace beyond.
Attendance is kept for each class period separately.
Absences
When a student is not in class, they are marked “absent”. Absences may occur for a variety of reasons including illness, family matters, school organized trips, and more. ISB determines whether absences are “Excused” or “Unexcused” with clear criteria as outlined in the MS Handbook:
Tardies
When a student is not present for the start of a class, they are marked tardy. As we know, punctuality is important and respectful.
Being on time for class is a demonstration of respect for the student’s own learning, the teacher’s preparation and instruction of each lesson, and the attention and learning of classmates. When a child comes to class late, entering the room after lessons have started can be disruptive, drawing attention away from the learning at hand. It also means the student has missed intended learning.
Tardies happen for a variety of reasons and may be excused in the event of unexpected rain delays, a teacher releasing their students late from the class prior, or other unexpected circumstances. While we know that it can sometimes be slow entering campus, this is a known challenge and we expect students to leave home earlier in anticipation of delays like this. Students may be late looking for an ID card, or because they forgot school items and had to go back. We understand that these happen, but these would be unexcused tardies.
Over the course of the semester, we know that tardies may take place on occasion. If they become a pattern or regular occurrence, then we have measures in place for students to “make up” that time during other free time, like lunch. We hope that these types of consequences serve as a motivation to be on time moving forward.
Accurate Records
It is our responsibility as a school that accounts for student safety to have accurate records of where students are. Regardless of whether a tardy is excused or unexcused, it is our duty to record these in PowerSchool so that in the event of an emergency we have clarity on where a student is, when they arrived, and whether there are patterns that we need to be aware of to support their learning growth. All attendance records are kept as accurately as possible.
We appreciate parents ongoing efforts to ensure their children arrive at school on time. Classes this year start at 7:40 (when students should be in class, not just arriving). This is significantly later than previous years when we started at 7:20 AM! During the day, we provide plenty of passing time to move between classes and go to lockers for supplies.
If parents need to report an absence, they can write directly to Khun Aor, our Attendance Secretary, at walairaw@isb.ac.th