St Catherine Of Siena Catholic Primary School

Attendance

The following information is intended to provide parents/carers with an understanding of the importance of regular attendance and punctuality, what we do as a school to continually improve attendance and to provide information about poor attendance.

At St. Catherine's, we believe that pupils need to attend school every day in order for them to take advantage of educational opportunities and achieve their full potential. Poor attendance and persistent lateness has a detrimental effect on a pupil’s education and performance. Evidence suggests that children who attend school every day make better progress and achieve greater success.

Children must be present for morning and afternoon registration; both of these sessions count towards your child’s overall attendance. This is represented as a percentage; the number of sessions your child has actually attended out of the number of possible sessions throughout the academic year.

At St. Catherine's we understand that in certain circumstances absence from school is unavoidable, these include illness, medical appointments, and religious observances. In order for these absences to be authorised school must be informed of the reason either by phone, in person or in writing. It is asked that in the case of a medical appointment, an appointment card/ letter must be seen by a member of staff in the school office.

Please note that an authorised absence is still recorded as an absence and will have an effect on your child’s overall attendance and education. We therefore ask that wherever possible medical appointments are made outside of school hours.

An absence will be recorded as unauthorised when a child arrives to school after the registers have closed, when a child is absent from school and no reason has been given or the reason given is not genuine and for holidays taken during term time.

At St. Catherine's parents/carers are responsible for ensuring that their children:

• Attend school every day.
• Arrive at school on time.
• Inform the school office of the reason for absence before 9:30am on the first day of absence.
• Keep school informed if absence is for an extended period of time.
• Inform the school of any medical/dental appointments and provide a copy of an appointment card to the school office.