Attendance

St Joseph’s is committed to enabling every child to achieve their full potential.

There is a strong link between good school attendance and achieving a good education. Children who frequently miss school may fall behind in their learning and development. We are proud of our children’s good attendance but also remain determined to improve this further with your support.

Every school day is important, and it is essential that children attend school every day.

What does your child’s percentage attendance mean?
As a school, our target attendance percentage is 98%.

The attendance lead at St Joseph’s: Mrs VL Gallagher.

If you have any matters regarding your child’s attendance, that you would wish to discuss, email: [email protected]

If your child is absent for reasons of sickness, medical appointments or emergencies, you must contact the school office by 9.00am on the day of the first day of absence.

The easiest way to do this is via the School App. Go to the parent portal > register an absence.

 

Alternatively, you may contact the school as follows:

For Nursery & Infants

Call: 020 8670 2385 or email: [email protected]

For Juniors

Call: 020 8653 7195 or email: [email protected]

The school is legally responsible for your child and if we do not have prior notification of their absence we will contact you.

The Department for Education has amended the regulations and guidance in relation to absences in term time. There is no automatic right to take your child out of school during term time.

From 1st September 2013, the Department of Education will only allow a Headteacher to grant a leave of absence if there are exceptional circumstances. In determining whether or not an absence in such circumstances can be authorised, it is for the Headteacher to determine the number of days a child can be away from school if the leave is granted.

If you consider that your request falls into this category, you will need to complete the form below and submit it to the office.

Download the Leave of Absence Form

A response will be sent to you as soon as possible. If the absence requested is not considered to be an exceptional circumstance, and you nevertheless take your child out of school, the absence will be recorded as unauthorised in line with Local Authority guidance.

Therefore, in the case of an unauthorised absence, our Education Welfare Officer will be notified and a Penalty Notice could be issued. Please note that Penalty Notices are issued to each parent for each child taken out of school. A Penalty Notice is a fine of £60 which increases to £120 if not paid within the first 21 days. If the Penalty Notice remains unpaid, this will result in further legal intervention.

All absence requests must be completed on the attached form, letters will not be accepted. This should be returned to the school a minimum of 14 days before the start of the absence.

Any absence from school will disrupt your child’s learning. You may consider some absences to be educational but your child will still miss out on the teaching that their classmates will receive. Children returning from an absence are unprepared for the lessons which build on the teaching they have missed. Teachers then have to give more time to help individual children catch up on missed work. This poses a potential risk of underachievement of other students in the class. This is something we all have a responsibility to avoid.