Attendance

Did you know?

• 5 minutes late every day means around 3 ½ days of education are missed
• a score of 90% in a test would be a good result but 90% attendance means that a child will have missed around 100 lessons over a school year.

Regular school attendance 

Good attendance shows secondary schools and future potential employers that your child is reliable.

St John's Primary school records details of all children’s attendance and absence at school. We must do so at the beginning of morning and afternoon sessions. If your child is absent, you must tell the school why immediately. The school will record the absence; the Local Authority will receive this information for each child. The Department of Education also receives annual attendance data for the school.

Your responsibilities as a parent

By law, all children of compulsory school age must receive a suitable full-time education. For most parents, this means registering their child at a school – though some choose to make other arrangements to provide a suitable, full-time education.

Once your child is registered at St John's Primary School, the parent is legally responsible for making sure they attend on a regular basis.  If your child does not attend school on a regular basis you could get fined or be prosecuted in court.

How to prevent your child from missing school

You can help prevent your child missing school by:

• making sure they understand the importance of good attendance and punctuality
• taking an interest in their education – ask about school work and encourage them to get involved in school activities
• discussing any problems they may have at school and letting their teacher or one of the leadership team know about anything serious
• not letting them take time off school for minor ailments – particularly those which would not prevent you from going to work

To avoid disrupting your child’s education, you should arrange appointments and outings:

• after school hours
• at weekends
• during school holidays
• You should not expect St John's Primary School to agree to your child going on holiday during term time.

Support on school attendance

A child’s school attendance can be affected if there are problems with:

• bullying
• housing or care arrangements
• transport to and from school
• work and money

If your child starts missing school, you might not know there is a problem.  When you find out, ask your child and then approach their teacher or Mrs O'Keefe - there's lots of support we can offer.

St John’s CE Primary School approach to supporting and improving school attendance.

The Strategic Approach

St John’s School adopts the 5 Foundations of Effective Attendance Practice framework: this is modelled on the work of Professor Katherine Weare. The emphasis is on developing a school culture and climate which builds a sense of connectedness and belonging to ensure all children can attend school and thrive.  The approach ensures we prioritise building solid working relationships with children / parents prior to any escalation.  The staged approach we use ensures we identify triggers early that can lead to poor attendance issues such as mental health issues, lack of trust, communication and relationship breakdowns and the possible lack of networking opportunities both internal (in-school) and external (external agencies).

The Foundations framework has most recently been reviewed by the Department for Education.  The Foundations framework received an excellent report following the four-day review. 

“The Foundations approach is an excellent example of best practice; there are very clear and detailed systems and procedures in place to manage absence and attendance consistently”. 

(Michelle O’Dell DFE Attendance Advisor March 2022)

Aims of the strategy

• Increase school Attendance and reduce Persistent Absence to meet set targets.
• Ensure Attendance is well managed within the school, with the appropriate level of resources allocated.
• Enable the school to make informed use of Attendance data to target interventions appropriately, focusing on the key demographic groups highlighted in the 2022 DFE paper.

Objectives 

-create an ethos within the school in which good attendance is recognised as the norm and every child/young person aims for excellent attendance.

-make attendance and punctuality a priority.

-set focused targets to improve individual attendance and whole school attendance levels.

-embed the 5 Foundations of Effective Attendance Practice framework which defines agreed roles and responsibilities and promotes consistency in carrying out designated tasks with respect to promoting attendance and punctuality.

-record and monitor attendance and absenteeism and apply appropriate strategies to minimise absenteeism.

-develop a systematic approach to gathering and analysing relevant attendance data.

-provide support, advice and guidance to; parents, children and young people and develop mutual cooperation between home and the school in encouraging good attendance and in addressing identified attendance issues.