“From the first day of term to the last, the small moments in a school day make a real difference to your child. #AttendanceCounts”

The link between attendance and attainment is clear:

• In 2018/19, just 40% of persistently absent (PA) children in KS2 achieved expected KS2 standards, compared with 84% of pupils who were regular attenders.
• And 36% of PA children in KS4 got 9 to 4 in their English and maths GCSEs, also compared with 84% of regular attenders.¹

And it’s never too late to benefit from good attendance:

• More than half (54%) of pupils who were PA in Year 10 and then rarely absent in Year 11, passed at least 5 GCSEs, compared to 36% of pupils who were persistently absent in both years.²                                                                             But attendance is important for more than just attainment:
• Regular school attendance can facilitate positive peer relationships, which is a protective factor for mental health and wellbeing.³

Attendance Superstars Autumn term 2023

Congratulations to all of the following children who achieved 100% attendance during the Autumn term:

Henry At, Teddy, Felicity, Elijah Bai, Willow, Harper, Orla H, Harriet S, George A, Percy, Henry Ar, Alice, Bethany, Elijah Bal, Ronnie, Adam, Allana, Simon, Finn, Thomas, Talia P, Darcy, Eliza, Annie-Rose, Vivienne, Sebastian, Eva, Ryan and Zachary

These children have been presented with a Bronze attendance badge.

Attendance Superstars 2022-2023

GOLD AWARD: 100% Attendance for the whole year

Alice. G, Eva. G, Bethany and Oliver. C

SILVER AWARD: 100% attendance for two terms during the year

Darcy, Evie, Evelyn, Eloise. Elijah Bai, Harriet. B, Jack, Amelie, Allana, Simon, Jacob. L, Vivienne, Theo, Ella, Ryan, Chloe, Maisie, Tristan, Hope and Lennon

BRONZE AWARD: 100% attendance for the Summer term

Artie, Albie, Orla. G, Poppy, Sebe, Henry, Annabelle, Ronnie, Chase4, Thomas, Eliza, Isla, Sebastian, Elliot, Harry, Elliott, Marcus and Alice. LF

At St. Peter's C of E Primary & Nursery School, we expect the highest levels of attendance possible to ensure pupils continue to progress and enjoy their education. Our aim is to have all students achieve a minimum of 98% attendance and ultimately aim for 100% attendance and punctuality.

The information below should help parents/carers to support their children to ensure we achieve the highest possible attendance levels.

The importance of coming to school

Coming to school every day is very important for your child.

Research has shown that children with poor attendance:

• Find it harder to make and keep friends
• Are less likely to gain good qualifications
• Earn lower wages
• Have a higher chance of being unemployed
• Have low self-esteem

Children who miss school, miss lessons. These lessons are not repeated, so children will have gaps in their learning. Additionally, often each day’s lessons build upon those of the previous day – if a child misses a lesson they can miss the foundation to subsequent lessons. Children could begin to struggle and achieve less.

Attendance is related to achievement:
The better the attendance, the better the achievement

If your child is away from school for more than 9 days a year they will not have ‘Good’ attendance. They will have missed 45 lessons!

This means your child can only miss one day every half-term to get good attendance.

• If a child misses only one day each week, by the end of the school year they will have missed 39 days of school – thats the same as missing 8 weeks worth of lessons!
• If they did this for two years they will have missed the equivalent of nearly half a year of school!
• Looking ahead, 90% of young people with absence rates below 85% fail to achieve five or more good grades of GCSE and around one third achieve no GCSEs at all.
• Further more, poor examination results limit young people’s options and poor attendance suggests to colleges and employers that these students are unreliable.

It is important from an early age to get into the habit of attending school!

Additionally, while children are absent, friendship groups are formed within school and children can feel left out when they return.

Here are some key reasons why it’s important for children to attend school:

• To learn
• To have fun
• To make new friends
• To experience new things in life
• To develop awareness of other cultures, religion, ethnicity and gender differences
• To achieve
• To gain qualifications
• To develop new skills
• To build confidence and self-esteem
• To have the best possible start in life

By keeping a child out of school we are stopping them experiencing and gaining these important things.

Young people who regularly miss school without good reason are more likely to become isolated from their friends, to underachieve in examinations and/or become involved in anti-social behaviour.

Parental requirements

All parents/carers of St. Peters' pupils should:

• ensure that they are fully aware of the school’s attendance policy
• have children in class by 8:50am
• inform the school of any absence and keep us up to date of any prolonged absence
• avoid medical and dental appointments during the school day
• not take holidays in school term time

Punctuality

Of course, it’s better to be late to school than to not arrive at all. However, we always encourage punctuality at school. Not only is it a good habit to learn from an early age (it will help them when they come to have a job later in life), but being on time is also important for a child because:

• it helps them settle into the school day well, with everybody else
• it helps them make and keep friends
• it improves self-confidence
• class teachers often include learning sessions during registration

In fact, by regularly arriving late, children can miss a lot of learning time!

• Arriving 5 minutes late every day adds up to 3 days lost each year
• Arriving 15 minutes late every day is the same as being absent for nearly 2 weeks a year
• Arriving 30 minutes late every day is the same as being absent for 18 days a year

Being on time is important!

Some other reasons being late is a bad thing include:

• It can be embarrassing
• It can damage a child’s confidence
• It may lead to children being confused and missing vital instructions, information and bits of news at the start of the day
• It disrupts everyone else’s learning

Some simple tips that can help with punctuality include:

• establishing a good bedtime routine
• making sure children go to bed to sleep and not be distracted by TVs or computer games
• setting an alarm clock
• allowing plenty of time to get to the academy in a morning
• making arrangements with family or friends to help or share the responsibility, especially if you have more than one school to go to
• talk to the your child’s teacher if you have problems getting your child to the academy on time

School attendance and the law

A child’s education is very important, so the law is strong when it comes to helping a child receive it. According to the Government, ‘local councils and schools can use various legal powers if your child is missing school without a good reason’:

• Parenting Order
• Education Supervision Order
• School Attendance Order
• penalty notice

Please note, ‘you can be given one or more of these orders but the council doesn’t have to do this before prosecuting you’.

A parenting order ‘means you have to go to parenting classes. You’ll also have to do what the court says to improve your child’s school attendance’.

‘If the council thinks you need support getting your child to go to school but you’re not co-operating, they can apply to a court for an Education Supervision Order. A supervisor will be appointed to help you get your child into education. The local council can do this instead of prosecuting you, or as well’.

‘You’ll get a School Attendance Order if the local council thinks your child isn’t getting an education’. ‘The order will require you to send your child to a specific school. If you don’t, you may be prosecuted’. Instead of being prosecuted, you can be given a penalty notice.

In line with guidance provided by Nottinghamshire, a referral for a penalty notice could be made in the following circumstances:

• more than 3 days unauthorised absence over a 6 week period
• more than 3 days unauthorised absence where this is for the purpose of a holiday in
  term time
• where parents fail to ensure that their child attends regularly even though support
  has been provided by the school
• where there is a repeated pattern of unauthorised absence leading to attendance
  below 95%
• where a pupil is persistently late for 10 separate instances over a period of six
  school weeks and where these are signified as a “U” in the attendance register

The penalty is £60, rising to £120 if paid after 21 days but within 28 days. If you don’t pay the fine you may be prosecuted’.

In this context, being prosecuted means getting ‘a fine of up to £2,500, a community order or a jail sentence up to 3 months. The court also gives you a Parenting Order’.

Holidays during term-time

Please click on the link below to read Nottinghamshire County Councils guidance regarding holidays during term-time

• Holidays during term-time    Nottinghamshire County Council