Attendance
Regular attendance at school is vital for every child’s success, wellbeing, and future opportunities. Each day in school provides valuable learning experiences that build knowledge, skills, and confidence. When children attend consistently, they are better able to keep up with lessons, make progress, and achieve their full potential.
Good attendance also supports social development. Being in school helps children build friendships, develop communication skills, and feel part of a community. Missing school can make it harder for pupils to maintain these relationships and can lead to feelings of isolation.
Establishing strong attendance habits from an early age helps children understand the importance of commitment and responsibility - skills that will benefit them throughout their education and into adult life.
Even a small amount of absence can have a significant impact over time.
We work in partnership with families to promote excellent attendance and punctuality. By ensuring children attend school every day, on time, you are giving them the very best chance to succeed.
Expectations
We are working hard to improve attendance and punctuality as poor attendance and punctuality affect children’s personal, social and academic skills.
We expect all children to arrive on time at 8.40am and attend school every day.
Children only have 190 school days in a school year and there is clear evidence that there is a link between poor school attendance/punctuality and low levels of achievement. We expect all individual pupils to achieve at least 95% attendance.
We want to make sure that it is everyone’s responsibility to encourage good attendance, so we will be keeping you much more informed about how you can support this.
School Timings:
- Gates open at 8.35 am
- Gates close at 8.50 am
- Register is taken and closed at 8.50 am
- Between 8.50 am and 9.20 am marked as late.
- 9.20 onwards you will be marked as Unauthorised Absence for that session.
Absence during term time request
If you would like to request an absence during term time, please fill in the absence request form below a month prior to the absence.
Communicating absence to school
Phone: 01883342009
Email: admin@stjohnscofe.uk
Make sure to include your child's Full name, Class and reason for absence.
Is my child too ill for school?
At St John’s Primary School, we follow the NHS guidelines on illness.
If you’re unsure whether your child should attend school, the NHS provides a very helpful website that breaks down common childhood illnesses and offers clear recommendations.
Following this guidance helps us keep all children safe and healthy while ensuring learning continues whenever possible.
Routine medical appointments
Routine appointments, such as doctor, dentist, or optician visits should be arranged outside of school hours wherever possible.
We do understand that some hospital or consultant appointments cannot be changed.
In these cases, please provide evidence of the appointment (such as the appointment letter, email, or a screenshot of the text notification emailed to the office).
Thank you for your support in helping us to minimise disruption to learning.
How absence can build up
Below is a visual of how absences can add up and how it is calculated.
