Attendance

Attendance

Attendance at Holy Souls

Attendance is one of our main priorities at Holy Souls and we aim to keep all absences to a minimum. There is a strong link between attendance and academic progress. The impact on regular attendance affects on your child’s learning and well-being; and is linked to raising achievement and develops skills for life and work.

If your child is not in school, it becomes difficult for them to build on their skills and progress. In addition to this, there are also heightened safeguarding concerns as to why the child is missing from their education.

It is the Department of Education/Ofsted that dictate attendance below 95% is poor and that below 90% is 'persistent absenteeism'. Good attendance is vital for the success of pupils and their wellbeing. Our own data, as well as that issued nationally, makes clear that poor attendance results in poorer outcomes for children.

It is a parents’ duty to ensure that their child arrives on time and attends school every day.

Attendance Monitoring

Holy Souls are proud of the positive relationships we have with our parents and carers and know that strong partnerships are the most effective ways to help ensure good attendance. We monitor attendance on a weekly basis, and communicate to parents/carers promptly if there are any concerns.

If school has not been informed by 9.15am of a child's absence, a text message is sent directly to the parent/carer to contact school with a reason for the absence.

If there has been no response to the initial text on the first day, another text is sent asking parents/carers to contact school as soon as possible regarding the absence. If there has been no communication from parents/carers with the school, the school will contact the parents/carers via telephone to ascertain the absence.

When a pupil’s attendance becomes a concern, parents/carers are informed via letter. We do strive for every pupil to have an attendance of 95%. All pupils that fall below 90% are looked at individually, and letters sent out according to the reason why the pupil has been absent. This could be for a number of reasons, always late to school after registration has closed, a number of illnesses over a short period of time etc.

School will monitor attendance and where necessary refer to and work with parents/carers to tackle persistent absence.

If contact cannot be made to ascertain why the pupil is not in school, then a home visit will be considered, especially if there are already safeguarding concerns.

School attendance contracts are drawn up with families who fail to make any attendance improvements for their child/ren, this is after initial letters, meetings and other reviews have been unsuccessful.

School will inform parents/carers of their child(s) attendance by email at the end of each term.

Moments Matter, Attendance Counts

The government has launched a new national campaign to remind parents and carers of the importance of school attendance: Moments Matter, Attendance Counts

For further advice on attendance, the Moments Matter campaign and the use of penalty notice fines, please go to: https://educationhub.blog.gov.uk/2024/01/03/improving-school-attendance

Class rewards

We have a dedicated attendance board outside the main entrance to school, which will show every half-term the percentage of attendance in each class.

There will be class rewards to the class with the highest percentage that half-term.

Persistent Absenteeism

If a child's absence is 10% or higher (19 days absence, 38 sessions) this is classed as by the Government as a Persistent Absenteeism. Children who do not attend school regularly and have many days absence, generally do not do as well as their peers.