St Patrick's Catholic Primary Academy

Attendance

Regular attendance at school is vital if children are to reach their full potential.

Below is a copy of the school's attendance policy which highlights the harm that can be done when the pattern of a child's learning is disrupted through absence from school.

 

Note: Our school will not authorise absence for family holidays taken in term-time unless for exceptional circumstances.

If you are planning on booking a holiday due to exceptional circumstances a Leave of Absence request form must be completed and submitted BEFORE the holiday is booked.

Please download the form below by clicking on the link, complete and hand in to school:

Holidays in Term Time 

Parents/carers should read this important information on holiday requests BEFORE booking a holiday.

 

HOLIDAYS IN TERM TIME Guidance

Education (Pupil Registration, England) Regulations 2006 has been amended (as of 1 September 2013) to prohibit the Headteacher of a school granting leave of absence to a pupil except where an application has been made in advance and the Headteacher considers that there are exceptional circumstances relating to the application. The expectation of the Local Authority is that term time holidays should not be planned or booked as a matter of course as they are likely to be unauthorised and will lead to the issuing of a penalty notice (fine).

Exceptional circumstances

These are defined as:

  • Forces Personnel on leave from a foreign posting
  • Exceptional significant family events or circumstances – these will be considered on an individual basis with you.

The Headteacher will consider every above request individually but the following will not meet the criteria:

  • Relatives coming to visit
  • Cheaper holidays in England and abroad
  • Family day trips
  • Visiting family/friends that have different half term holidays and may include refusal to attend wider family weddings and visits to see family abroad
  • Difficulties getting parent leave from work during school holidays

Should you wish to make a request for a holiday absence for your child please do so on our:

Pupil Leave of Absence Request Document   

 

This form should be completed and handed in at the school office at least 4 weeks before the requested absence.

Parents/carers are asked NOT to book a holiday etc until they have been informed if the absence has been approved.

Please make relatives aware of the school’s procedures.


Thank you

 

Our School Attendance Policy 2023-2024

 

If your child is absent as a result of sickness or diarrhoea they must not return to school until 48 hours after the last episode in order to ensure we do not have a spread of the illness across school. This is in line with the Health Protection Agency document, “Guidelines for the Control of Infection and Communicable Disease in School and Early Years Settings”

St Patrick's 48 hour Sickness / Diarrhoea Rule

Our Attendance

We are very proud of the super attendance here at St Patrick's and enjoy celebrating that with our pupils in celebration assembly each Friday.

 

Each week we announce the class that has the very best attendance for the week, always striving to be in school every day to have 100% attendance. In this way we do not miss out on important steps of learning, social times with our friends and teachers and enjoying being together in the family of St Patrick's.

It is always a very hard, fought title and trophy, to be our weekly winners.

We have an attendance display board in the corridor which is updated each Friday by our Head Boy and Head Girl, with the percentages for attendance that week and a trophy is added to the board for the winning class. The pupils enjoying looking how close their class was in achieving the winning attendance trophy and raising their aspiration and determination to win the next week. They love to see how well their class is doing - seeing how many times their class has won during the term, as they have a trophy badge put on on the chart each time!

                                                  

Thank you for working hard to ensure our pupils are in school every day - recognised by our recent OFSTED in November 2023.

The government expected attendance, that school is judged on, is 96% or higher – the vast majority of classes and year groups are now hitting those high attendance figures but some that are just below. Having high attendance is evidenced to have a significant impact on pupils learning and the progress they make, so it is essential that we have such great attendance figures so we can give our pupils the very best chance to reach their potential and be ready for the next stages of their learning journeys.

Persistent Attendance is classed as any pupil who has 10% absence or higher and school is judged on how it tackles this problem – our PA figure in 2022-2023 was 4.8% which was significantly lower than National at 17.7%. Thank you for working in partnership with us to keep this figure as low as possible.

It is vital that we ensure that this figure is as low as possible to give all our pupils the very best chance to reach their potential and be ready for the learning in their next class.