Attendance
Your child’s attendance at school matters. Children whose attendance is strong have good mental health and well-being, firm friendships and trusting relationships with staff, a secure sense of self, they make good progress in and enjoy their learning. Children who attend well in school are building a firm foundation to support them to live life in all its fullness both now and into adult life. There are strong links between good school attendance and children’s learning progress and good exam results both in primary and secondary school.
Vision and Values:
At St Mary’s CE Primary School we aim to create for an environment which enables and encourages all members of the community to reach out for excellence. For our children to gain the greatest benefit from their education it is vital that they attend regularly, and your child should be at school, on time, every day the school is open unless the reason for the absence is unavoidable. Obviously, we would like to see pupils as close to 100% as possible but understand that at times, we all get sick. Any absence affects the pattern of a child’s schooling and regular absence will seriously affect their learning.
Promoting and Incentivising Good Attendance:
In our academy we celebrate attendance in our collective worship with the winning class having the privilege of keeping the school mascot for the week. If any class gets 100% they get to keep the 100% trophy for the week. Children who are on our attendance watchlist have an incentive of a treat from the prize box if they attend school every day.
Punctuality and Absence
Regular attendance and punctuality are essential in ensuring children have every opportunity to succeed. It is the legal responsibility of parents / carers to ensure children attend and are punctual. If an absence during term time is unavoidable due to illness, please phone or email the school office before 8:45am. We operate a ‘safe to school’ procedure and will attempt to make contact on the first day of any unknown absence.
We monitor attendance of all our children, working closely with our Education Welfare Officer.
If your child is unwell. Sometimes a child is ‘under the weather’ but well enough to attend. If they are not well enough, please let us know by 8:45am by emailing/calling/logging on the Arbor portal.
Is my child well enough to come to school? It can be a difficult decision. If we feel your child is not well enough to be in school, we will contact you. There is further information here :
Time off for other reasons. Parents and carers should aim to ensure appointments are made for outside of school hours whenever possible (for example, opticians, dental etc). We recognise that sometimes there are appointments which have to take place during school time (ie NHS consultants, hospital appointments). In some situations, absence may be authorised, for example essential medical appointments, illness, the wedding of a parent or sibling, funeral of a close family member or close friend. Parents and carers should note that it is in the Headteacher’s discretion to authorise absence in exceptional circumstances, it is not a legal entitlement.
Leave of absence form
Requests for absence (that aren’t due to illness) need to be made in advance. Please note that holidays will only be authorised by the headteacher in exceptional circumstances and must be requested prior to booking.
