Attendance
All children have the right to education based on equality of opportunity and Holy Rood Catholic Primary School, in partnership with parents, carers and other parties, implement measures to encourage regular school attendance and reduce rates of absenteeism.
We know that there is a direct link between a child's attainment, progress, social skills and attendance. A child’s success at school is likely to be affected negatively if their attendance is poor. Those who do not attend regularly may fall behind in their learning, leading to underachievement, both academically and socially.
Holy Rood Catholic Primary recognises the crucial role that parents and carers play in promoting good school attendance. We therefore seek to provide professional, quality information and advice, communicated frequently by telephone, texts, Newsletters and parents’ evenings.
The School’s Responsibilities:
To maximise attendance rates
To support parents/carers in ensuring regular and punctual attendance
To promote an active policy of first day contact over absence
To be supportive of individual parents/carers
To ensure parents/carers know the legal requirement in respect of attendance at school.
To ensure parents/carers appreciate that absence from school means that their child will have missed lessons and therefore, be at a disadvantage and may fall behind the rest of the class.
To encourage parents/carers to commit to support the school through the “home school agreement” contract.
To keep parents/carers informed with up-to-date information in relation to attendance and government guidelines.
To establish regular liaison meetings between the Head Teacher and the Education Welfare Officer.
For the Head Teacher to update Governors on the attendance of the children.
To clearly identify authorised and unauthorised attendance.
Attendance Procedures:
All children should be in school for their staggered allocated registration time.
All class teachers should take the register at these times; completing the register in the specified manner i.e. / for present in the morning and \ for present in the afternoon. If a child is absent and the actual reason known (eg illness, medical appointment, holiday) the specific code is used. If the reason for absence is not immediately available a blank space is left and the register completed after consultation with the parents/carers.
Registration will close at 9.05am. Any child reporting for school after that time will be deemed to be ‘Late for Registration’.
Any notified absence should be recorded in the appropriate manner.
Legal Responsibility: parents and carers have a legal responsibility to ensure that their child attends school regularly. Our registers are checked by our Educational Welfare Officer who may visit families who are not fulfilling their legal obligation. This can lead to court proceedings in extreme cases.
Hospital, Doctors, Dentist Appointments: Unless it is an emergency, visits to the dentist, doctor etc, should be made outside of school hours where possible.
Sickness: should your child need to be collected from school due to sickness or appointments after morning or afternoon registration, it is very important that you sign your child out at the office before you leave.
Holiday In Term Time: as part of the on-going drive to improve the attendance levels in all schools, Swindon Local Authority actively discourages parents and carers from taking children on holiday during term time. Holidays should be taken during the school breaks.
