Attendance at Sacred Heart

Regular school attendance

At Sacred Heart, leaders track details of all children’s attendance and absence from school. 

If your child is absent, you must inform the school immediately.

Your responsibilities as a parent

Once your child is registered at a Primary School, the parent is legally responsible for making sure they attend on a regular basis.  

How to prevent your child from missing school

You can help prevent your child missing school by:

• making sure they understand the importance of good attendance and punctuality.

• taking an interest in their education, ask about schoolwork and encourage them to get involved in school activities.

• discussing any problem they may have at school and letting their teacher or principal know about anything serious.

• not letting children take time off school for minor ailments, particularly those which would not prevent you from going to work.

 To avoid disrupting your child’s education, you should arrange appointments and outings:

• after school hours.

• at weekends.

• during school holidays.

• You should not expect Sacred Heart Catholic Primary School to agree to your child going on holiday during term time.

Support on school attendance

If your child starts missing school, you might not know there is a problem.  If there is a problem, please approach their teacher, Mrs Cooper or Mrs Craig.

​We will aim to support you as much as possible with improving your child's school attendance.

 The Strategic Approach

Sacred Heart Catholic Primary School adopts the 5 Foundations of Effective Attendance Practice framework. The emphasis is on developing a school culture and climate which builds a sense of belonging to ensure all children can attend school and thrive.  The approach ensures we prioritise building solid working relationships with children and parents prior to any escalation.  The staged approach we use ensures we identify triggers early that can lead to poor attendance issues such as mental health issues, lack of trust, communication and relationship breakdowns and the possible lack of networking opportunities both internal (in-school) and external (external agencies)

Aims of the strategy

• Increase school Attendance and reduce Persistent Absence to meet set targets.

• Ensure Attendance is well managed within the school, with the appropriate level of resources allocated.

• Enable the school to make informed use of Attendance data to target interventions appropriately, focusing on the key demographic groups highlighted in the 2022 DFE paper.

 Objectives 

To create an ethos within the school in which good attendance is recognised as the norm and every child/young person aims for excellent attendance.

• make attendance and punctuality a priority.

• set focused targets to improve individual attendance and whole school attendance levels.

• embed the 5 Foundations of Effective Attendance Practice framework which defines agreed roles and responsibilities and promotes consistency in carrying out designated tasks with respect to promoting attendance and punctuality.

• record and monitor attendance and absenteeism and apply appropriate strategies to minimise absenteeism.

• develop a systematic approach to gathering and analysing relevant attendance data.

• provide support, advice and guidance to; parents, children and young people and develop mutual cooperation between home and the school.

The framework allows the school to understand the whole school approach to supporting and improving attendance. We create welcoming environments to allow all children to gain a sense of belonging and ultimately achieve academically through regular school attendance. 

Certain staff are identified to engage in specialist training to continue to support families and children who work with external partners but all staff are integral to impvoving attendance.

We use data information to support children as this allows us to understand the groups, and individuals, who require specific support. Reviewing support allows us to understand the effectiveness of and change what is not working.

Staff use the wider curriculum to allow all children to feel valued and accept themselves.  We celebrate attendance success and ensure children feel supported and welcomed when they reurn from long term absence. 

DFE: Working Together To Improve Attendance 2022.

​From September 2022 the DFE: 'Working Together To Improve School Attendance' paper will replace all previous guidance on school attendance except for statutory guidance for parental responsibility measures.  The Secretary of State has committed to it becoming statutory when parliamentary time allows (this will be no sooner than September 2023). 

​The table below identifies how the 5 Foundations of Effective Attendance Practice will underpin the DFE 2022 paper in meeting the summary of expectations.