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Attendance

At St John Evangelist School we know that regular attendance is key to enabling all pupils to make good progress and enjoy their learning and ultimately ensures that young people have the maximum life chances.

At St John’s we aim to achieve an average of 97% attendance for the year across the whole school. We work hard to support our families and regularly monitor all children’s attendance. In order to encourage good attendance we will:

  • Issue termly certificates to children who have attendance of 97% and above and have a celebration party with these children;
  • Have a weekly attendance and punctuality raffle to win a £10 voucher (children are entered if they were in school, on time every day for the previous week);
  • At the end of each term, we will let you know your child’s attendance percentage during the October/ November and March parent consultation and on the end of year report.
  • Let parents know when attendance is below 95;
  • We will write to all parents whose child’s attendance is below 90% (Persistent Absentees). Persistent Absentees are monitored throughout the year and an appointment will be made for you to meet with the school’s Education Welfare Officer.  Please note that Penalty Notices will be issued to parents where children remain Persistent Absentees;
  • Work with our Education Welfare Office to support families where attendance is a concern.

As parents we ask you to help by:

  • Notifying the school promptly if your child is ill or is absent for any other unavoidable reason for example, a visit to secondary school;
  • Making non-urgent medical appointments outside of school hours;
  • Booking all holidays outside of term time as St John’s will not authorise any term time absences for family holidays. Please remember that there are 190 days of school which leaves 175 days to book family holidays and celebrations. If children are taken on term time holidays, parents will be fined;
  • Making sure children arrive promptly to school. Children need to be seated in class ready for the register at 9 am and should not be walking through the playground at this time

Exceptional circumstances:

Under the amended legislation, ‘exceptional circumstances’ are one-off events which are unavoidable.

This information is designed to help parents/guardians understand how and when leave of absence in exceptional circumstances may be granted. The decision to authorise absence is at the Headteacher’s discretion based on their assessment of the situation but will be ‘one-off’ and ‘unavoidable’.

Examples of when exceptional circumstances may be authorised include:

  • the death of an immediate family member;
  • attendance at a funeral;
  • a housing crisis which prevents attendance;
  • the day of the wedding of an immediate family member (invitation provided as evidence);
  • participation in a one off sporting event / performing arts event (written evidence from event organiser);
  • operation requiring recovery time.

Please see the exceptional circumstances leaflet for more information: Exceptional Circumstances 

We look forward to working with you to improve attendance and improve the learning journey of your child.