Attendance

Absence Reporting Procedures

St. Jude’s Catholic Primary School records details of all children’s attendance and absence from school. We do so at the beginning of morning and afternoon sessions. If your child is absent, you must inform the school immediately.

If your child is absent from school due to illness, please telephone school on 0121 464 5069 and inform the office staff or leave a message before 9.30am. If your child’s illness lasts for more than one day, you must phone school daily and inform us why your child is still absent. If your child’s illness lasts longer than 48hrs and you have not already done so, we advise you to seek medical attention.

Parental illness is NOT an excuse for children not attending school; you can always ask for support with this if necessary.  Children must attend school every day unless they are ill.

The school will record the absence and 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. Although some parents choose to make other arrangements to provide a suitable, full-time education.

Once your child is registered at a 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 be subject to a fine 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 schoolwork and encourage them to get involved in school activities.
• discussing any problem they may have at school and letting their teacher or principal know about anything serious.
• not letting children take time off school for minor ailments; we do have an ‘Under the Weather’ form (see below) that you can complete so that we can monitor children in school.

Also see:

• Under the Weather Form
• Under the Weather Form (Word version)

Appointments

To avoid disrupting your child’s education, you should arrange medical appointments (wherever possible) and outings:

• after school hours.
• at weekends.
• during school holidays.

You should not expect St. Jude’s Catholic Primary School to agree to your child going on holiday during term time under any circumstance.

Support on School Attendance

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

• Housing or care arrangements
• Transport to and from school
• Work and money
• Bullying
• Social, emotional and mental health needs

If your child starts missing school, all adults need to work together to establish the reason why.  If there is a problem, please approach someone at school and we will always help.

The approach to supporting and improving school attendance at St. Jude’s

Our Strategic Approach

St. Jude’s Catholic Primary School has robust attendance support and we work alongside CSAWS Attendance Support and Birmingham City Council which adopts the Support First approach

This approach supports the DFE  national attendance improvement strategy – Working Together to Improve School Attendance

Our named CSAWS staff member is Mrs Harris and she will contact you if your child’s attendance is becoming a concern.

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 and 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).

Safe and Well Home Visits

If your child is absent from school, you do not inform school and we cannot make contact, a member of staff will visit your home. If you are not present, you will be left a letter asking you to contact school. It is very important that you contact school and inform us why your child is absent. If we do not hear from you, we will be concerned and may make a referral for external support.

Lateness

As you may be aware, the law treats some persistent lateness in the same way as irregular attendance and parents may be prosecuted by the local authority if late arrival is not resolved.

Poor punctuality can lead to your child…

• Feeling embarrassed in front of their friends
• Missing the beginning of vital lessons
• Missing important instructions for the rest of the school day
• Learning bad habits which could affect their employability in the future.

To make sure that every child is on time, the first bell of the school day rings at 8.45am. This gives every child the chance of getting in to school ready for the morning register at 9am. Any child who arrives after 9am but before the end of the morning registration session at 9.30am will be marked as late with an L code on the register. Arrivals after 9.30am will be given a U code meaning that this is recorded an unauthorised absence.

Every school day matters and helps build a brighter future. Thank you for supporting your child’s learning through regular attendance.

Attendance Ladder