Attendance and Punctuality
Every School Day Matters
At SS John & Monica Catholic Primary School, we want every child to attend school regularly, arrive on time and benefit fully from the education, friendships and wider opportunities that school provides.
Good attendance is about much more than achieving a percentage. Regular attendance helps children to learn, make progress, develop friendships, build confidence, establish routines and feel that they belong to their school community.
Our attendance target is 97%, and we work in partnership with children and families to support the best possible attendance for every pupil.
Our Approach to Attendance
Attendance is everyone's responsibility. We recognise that there can be many reasons why a child may experience difficulties attending school. Where attendance begins to cause concern, our first priority is to understand what is happening and whether there are barriers that we can help the child and family to overcome.
We aim to:
- promote excellent attendance and punctuality across the school;
- develop positive relationships with families;
- identify emerging attendance difficulties early;
- listen to children and parents and understand barriers to attendance;
- provide appropriate support and reasonable adjustments where needed;
- work with external services where additional help is required;
- monitor attendance and punctuality carefully; and
- use formal attendance procedures and legal intervention where necessary.
This reflects the Department for Education's statutory Working Together to Improve School Attendance guidance, which emphasises schools, families and local authorities working together to improve attendance. GOV.UK
Attendance and Safeguarding
Attendance is an important safeguarding matter.
Knowing where our children are and ensuring that they are safe is a fundamental responsibility of the school.
We monitor attendance and absence carefully and follow up unexplained absence promptly. Where we cannot establish a child's whereabouts, or where patterns of absence give us concerns about a child's welfare, we will follow our safeguarding procedures and, where appropriate, work with Birmingham Children's Services, the Local Authority and other relevant agencies.
Parents and carers must therefore contact school whenever their child is going to be absent and provide the reason for the absence.
What Does Good Attendance Look Like?
We want every child to achieve attendance as close to 100% as possible.
Our school attendance target is:
⭐ 97%
Occasional illness is unavoidable, and children should remain at home when they are genuinely too unwell to attend school. However, frequent or unnecessary absence can quickly add up.
A child with 90% attendance has missed approximately 19 school days over a full academic year — almost four weeks of education.
Importantly, the Government definition of persistent absence is based on a pupil missing 10% or more of their possible school sessions. We therefore monitor children approaching this level carefully and will work with families before difficulties become entrenched.
If Your Child Is Unwell
If your child is too unwell to attend school, parents/carers should contact the School Office on the first morning of absence, giving the child's name, class and reason for absence.
Parents should continue to keep school informed during an extended period of illness.
Where illness becomes frequent or prolonged, we may contact parents to discuss how we can support the child's return to school. Where appropriate, we may work with health professionals and the Local Authority to ensure that the child continues to receive appropriate educational support.
Medical and Dental Appointments
Wherever possible, routine medical and dental appointments should be arranged outside school hours.
Where this is not possible, parents should provide evidence of the appointment and children should attend school before and/or after the appointment wherever reasonably possible, rather than missing the whole school day.
The 2024 attendance regulations specifically provide for authorised absence to attend medical or dental appointments. Legislation UK
Punctuality Matters Too
Being in school is important — but so is being on time.
Arriving late can mean that a child:
- misses important teaching and instructions;
- misses the start of phonics, reading or other learning;
- enters the classroom after everyone else has settled;
- can feel embarrassed or unsettled; and
- disrupts established routines.
Children arriving late must be accompanied to the School Office by their parent/carer and signed in. Please do not leave a late child at the school gate.
Schools are legally required to record attendance during both the morning and afternoon sessions and to distinguish between a pupil arriving late before the register closes and arriving after it has closed. Legislation UK
Holidays and Leave During Term Time
Parents should not take children out of school for holidays during term time.
The law does not give parents an automatic right to take their child out of school during term time.
Leave of absence can only be granted in accordance with the statutory regulations. Requests must be made to the Head Teacher in advance and will be considered individually.
A family holiday, cheaper flights or travel arrangements would not normally constitute exceptional circumstances.
Where leave has not been authorised, the absence will be recorded as unauthorised and the school may request that the Local Authority considers further action in accordance with the national attendance framework.
When Attendance Becomes a Concern
We monitor attendance throughout the year rather than waiting until a child's attendance becomes very low.
Where we identify a concern, we may:
- contact parents/carers to discuss attendance;
- explore the reasons for absence and any barriers affecting the child;
- agree actions and support with the family;
- monitor attendance over an agreed period;
- involve appropriate school or external support services;
- put a more formal attendance plan in place where necessary; and
- work with the Local Authority where attendance does not improve despite appropriate support.
Where voluntary support has not been successful or is not appropriate, formal attendance or legal intervention may be considered in accordance with statutory guidance. GOV.UK
Penalty Notices
There is a national framework for penalty notices relating to school attendance.
A penalty notice may be considered where the national threshold for unauthorised absence is met and where it is considered appropriate in the individual circumstances.
The purpose of any formal intervention is to protect a child's right to regular education. School will always consider the individual circumstances and the support that has been offered when deciding the appropriate next steps.
Supporting Children Who Find Attendance Difficult
We recognise that some children may experience significant barriers to attending school, including children with SEND, medical needs, mental health or emotional needs, or difficult family circumstances.
We will not simply look at the attendance percentage. We will seek to understand the individual child and work with parents/carers, our SENCO, pastoral staff and other professionals where appropriate.
Support might include:
pastoral support • SEND support • reasonable adjustments • gradual reintegration following significant absence • support with routines • referrals to appropriate services • multi-agency working
Our expectation of regular attendance remains high for all pupils, but the support needed to achieve this may look different for individual children.
Working Together
Parents and carers have an essential role in supporting good attendance. We ask families to:
ensure children attend every day they are well enough to do so • establish good morning and bedtime routines • ensure children arrive on time • contact school promptly about absence • arrange appointments outside school hours wherever possible • avoid term-time holidays • talk to us early if something is making attendance difficult
Please do not wait until attendance has become a serious problem before contacting us. The earlier we understand what is happening, the sooner we can work together to help.
Our shared aim
Every child in school, every day they are well enough to attend, on time and ready to learn.
The legal framework underpinning our procedures includes the School Attendance (Pupil Registration) (England) Regulations 2024, which have applied since 19 August 2024 and require schools to maintain electronic admission and attendance registers and record attendance at each session. Legislation UK
Department for Education – Working Together to Improve School Attendance