By law, all children of school age (aged four to sixteen) must receive a suitable full-time education. For most parents, this means registering your child at a school. Once your child is registered at a school, you are legally responsible for making sure they go regularly. 

Achieving 90 per cent in an exam or test is a fantastic result but if your child is at school for only 90 per cent of the school year then they will have missed 19 days - almost four whole weeks of school.

For primary-age children, this can mean almost 120 guided learning hours. This is a big gap for any child to make up.

We need you to make sure your child attends as much school as possible.

Attendance Policy:

Lateness

Poor punctuality is not acceptable and can sometimes lead to irregular school attendance patterns. Good timekeeping is a vital life skill which will help children as they progress through their school life and out into the wider world.

Pupils who arrive late disrupt lessons and, if a child misses the start of the day, they can feel unsettled and embarrassed and risk missing vital work and important messages from their class teacher.

The times of the start and close of the school day for all pupils at X School are:

Gates open: 8.30am where all parents are expected to arrive

Gate closes: 8.35 am

Registration starts: 8.45am

Registration closes: 9.00am (after 9am you get an unauthorised mark)

End of the school day: 3.15pm

Attendance lost learning hours:

The percentages below are based on end of year attendance. 

96% attendance means 8 days of learning are missed

90% means almost 4 weeks of learning missed

85% means 6 weeks of learning missed

80% means almost 8 weeks of learning  missed

75% means 9.5 weeks of learning missed

70% means nearly 12 weeks of learning missed

How we celebrate attendance:

At St. Peter's, we celebrate attendance in a range of ways. We will always try to work with our families to improve attendance. When calculating attendance, we will factor in individual circumstances so that we can be fair and balanced.

We may celebrate attendance by:

• sending home attendance postcards or certificates 
• celebrate individual attendance
• celebrate class attendance
• pizza and film afternoons
• visits to the park
• and many more

How we tackle poor attendance:

We will always strive to work with our families to improve attendance and we may have to use a range of strategies. Below are some of the ways we may do this:

• regular meetings with SLT
• regular meetings with a member of the Governing Body
• letters detailing absence
• school nurse involvement 
• attendance team involvement
• referrals to children's services
• fines 
• collecting children from home