Attendance | St John's CofE Primary School and Nursery

Attendance

Many thanks to all our parents and children who have helped to ensure that our attendance levels at St. John's have continued to improve for five consecutive years. In July 2019 it was 96.8%.

We encourage children to come to school through attendance awards. We give certificates to children with 100% attendance at the end of the school year.

Should your children not be able to attend school when they are ill, you need to ring the office on the first day of their absence. If you do not, we have to phone you so that we can be sure you’re your child is safe. This takes us a lot of time, therefore we really appreciate it when parents ring us to let us know why their child is away. Our office is open to take phone calls from 8am every day.

When your child returns to school we need you to send them with a signed note letting us know why they were away, even if you have already phoned us.

If you need to collect your child during the day for an appointment, for example a medical appointment or a music exam, please send your child to school with a note that morning for the class teacher. Please remember when collecting your child it may take us up to 5 minutes to collect them from their class.

Mrs. Beresford-King is our welfare assistant, one of her roles is to monitor pupil attendance. She helps children and families ensure that their attendance is good or excellent as indicated in the table below.

Attendance level	Number of days child misses	Monitoring and support
97% to 100%	Child is absent for fewer than 5.5 days a year	Excellent attendance
95% to 97%	Child is absent for between 9.5 and 5.5 days	Good attendance
90% to 95%	Child is absent for between 9.5 and 19 days	Attendance causing concern Class teacher monitors attendance with support of welfare assistant When the attendance of a pupil falls below 95% the class teacher is to discuss reasons and solutions with the child and parents or carers. The class teacher is to keep a record of this meeting and solutions. The letter in appendix 2 can be used to contact the parent. If attendance doesn’t improve after this initial teacher contact the class teacher is to inform the head of the key stage and member of the SLT. The head of key stage will review attendance patterns and decide if a meeting with the parent or carer is needed. Should this meeting take place attendance targets and support will be put in place.
Less than 90%	Child is absent for more than 19 days a year.	Poor attendance If attendance continues to fall to below 90% the matter will be reported to the welfare assistant or the head or deputy headteacher in their absence, who - Will discuss reasons and solutions with the family and set agreed attendance targets for future weeks. Will consider reporting concerns to attendance welfare staff at the Local Authority or social services. May issue penalty notice or begin legal procedures against parents for not ensuring regular attendance at school.

Leave of absence for pupils in exceptional circumstances

In September 2013 the Education (Pupil Registration) (England) (Amendment) Regulations 2013 came into force. These regulations make it clear that Headteachers should not grant approval for any leave of absence during term-time, including holidays, unless there are exceptional circumstances. Extra information is available from the Department for Education. CLICK HERE.
Any requests should be on an official school absence request form and handed into the school office for consideration prior to any holiday/leave arrangements being made. This form can be downloaded from our website, CLICK HERE.
You may be issued with a Penalty Notice should leave be taken which is not authorised.

Please note that all of our information regarding requests for leave of absence was updated for September 2018 when we updated our Attendance and Exceptional Leave of Absence policy in line with national and local authority advice following the Supreme Court ruling in relation to Platt V Isle of Wight case on 6.4.17. Our Attendance and Exceptional Leave of Absence policy is reviewed every September by the leadership team and governing body in line with any national or local advise and legislation.

Attendance and the law

The local authority have produced this useful leaflet to help clarify the legal responsibility that parents have in relation to sending children to school.

School attendance - the law - Sept 2019