Attendance Information

It is very important that your child attends school. There are a whole host of reasons why, but most importantly, as a Church of England School, your child’s presence makes our school a better place and when they’re not here we are poorer as a result.

Here are some students talking about why every day counts:

You may also be surprised by what your child’s attendance number actually means…

If your child has 90% attendance at school, it may sound good but the reality is VERY different:

• 90% attendance = ½ a day missed every week
• 1 school year at 90% = 4 whole weeks of lessons missed
• 5 school years at 90% = ½ a year of school missed

Here’s a graphic showing the impact of missing lessons each year:

Here is some more information about attendance at St Peter’s. We feel that it is helpful for you to understand the legislation that we are expected to uphold.

School starts at 8.30am, this is when the register is taken by Tutors. Please be aware student entrances close at 8:28am. Any students who arrive after that will be signed in as late (L) and if your child arrives after Tutor registration has closed at 9:00am, this will be marked as an unauthorised late (U). The Attendance Officer will issue a detention depending on reason for late. Detention will take place the next school day (except Mondays) and they will be afterschool for 20 minutes. This may be upscaled to being placed into Internal Exclusion by the Senior Leadership Team if failure to attend. Parents will be informed via their email that is linked to classcharts.

If your child does not attend morning registration, you will receive an automated text from school. Please respond to this promptly as this is to ensure that you know your child hasn’t arrived at school and is an important part of the school’s safeguarding procedures. If the school does not hear from you this will automatically be marked as unauthorised until a valid reason is given.

If your child is off sick for 3 days or more then you may be asked to provide medical evidence for absence. If evidence is not received then these absences may be unauthorised. If your child has 5 or more days unauthorised then you may be liable for a fine. It is very important that all absences are authorised by the school.

As of the 1st September 2013, all schools are unable to authorise any requests for absence relating to holidays in term time. This has been brought about by an amendment to the Education (Pupil Registration) (England) Regulations 2006 which has removed reference to holidays and the ten day period.

These changes reinforce the Government’s view that every minute of every school day is vital and that pupils should only be granted authorised absence by the school, in exceptional circumstances e.g. illness, exclusions, or due to exceptional circumstances. This view has recently been reinforced by Ofsted who in a recently published report on a Devon school reported, “Pupils clearly enjoy being at school. However, overall attendance is no better than average and this is in part due to some pupils being taken out of school for holidays during term time by their parents, in spite of the fact that the school has a clear and published policy that makes it clear that such absence is unauthorised. This absence has an impact on pupils’ achievement. As a result, the overall judgement for behaviour and safety is good rather than outstanding”.

We would remind parents that unauthorised absences may well result in the instigation of parental responsibility measures which could be a penalty notice, or a fine of up to £2,500 and/or a term of imprisonment of up to 3 months.

We hope you will support the school by ensuring that your child obtains the maximum benefit from their time at school by attending punctually for the 190 days each year that the law requires, unless prevented from doing so by an unavoidable circumstances.

Absence request forms are available to download from below or paper copy from the school office. This should be returned to the Attendance Officer in Reception 3 weeks in advanced of intended absence. Any work missed must be made up.

School reports will include attendance information, including attendance percentage and number of lates to Tutor and P5 lesson.

Our Attendance Officer is Ms Terri Walker. She will answer any queries you have about attendance and offer help with attendance problems. It is vital that you make contact as soon as possible if your child is having attendance problems.  As a school we want to help and support you.

View our attendance policy