Attendance and Punctuality
The following documents outline key information about how we work together to improve attendance and punctuality at St Francis:
Click the links below to find out more...
- Attendance strategy
- Attendance procedure
- Attendance leaflet for families
- Leave of absence request form (must be submitted before leave)
Attendance at St Francis is everyone's responsibility. We have a team who play an important role in monitoring the daily, weekly and monthly attendance.
Our Attendance team is made up of:
Mrs Gibbons - Headteacher
Miss Grayston - Assistant Headteacher
Mrs Harrison - Nurture team lead & learning mentor
Mrs Lawson - School Office Manager
Mrs Trueman - Office Administrator
St Francis Catholic Primary School believes that all children should take maximum advantage of the opportunities offered to them in school, to enable them to reach their full potential. Being at school on time and every day is crucial to a child maximising their potential.
Along with attending school every day, being punctual is extremely important and in fact an essential life skill. We encourage our children to come to school on time each day and this is part of each class’s Investors in Pupils Mission Statement. Our lessons start straight away after registration at 8:50 am. The children who are regularly late therefore miss vital learning time each day. This can then add up to a significant amount of learning time lost within a half term. If there are children who are repeatedly late we will contact the parents and carers to establish reasons for this and we will work together to resolve the issues.
If your child is unwell, has an appointment or cannot attend school for any reason it is really important that you let school know as soon as possible. Attendance of every child at St Francis is closely monitored and followed up with a phone call and possibly a home visit if the absence is unexplained or prolonged. We aim to not let the attendance of any child fall below 95% - if this happens we have a meeting to establish what the issues are and how we can help to ensure attendance improves.
Attendance is a key priority, every week class attendance is announced in assemblies. The winning classes each week will be added to the newsletter and the children will receive extra playtime the following week. Over the period of a term we do track a child’s individual attendance on numerous occasions. Having 100% attendance within term is a real achievement and something that we recognise at the end of each half term, with a special certificate.
At the end of the year we also look at those children who achieve 100% attendance for the whole year. Finally, when a child reaches the end of Year 6 we look at their 'career attendance' and celebrate with those who have been at school every day throughout their time with us. The letter below details how we reward and communicate with you your child's attendance.
Attendance is always written into our termly newsletters, is part of our Governor days, external teaching and learning reviews and is always on the agenda at the Governors Pupil Support Committee. Our attendance team is part of all meetings and feed back on the whole school picture - all of this information is then relayed back to the full Governing Body.
