Attendance

This is our Attendance Policy:

This is our form to request term time leave:

Our main aim is to support excellent levels of attendance for all children to enable fulfilment of their potential at St James Church School

Regular attendance at school is essential to each child’s academic success and life-chances. Research links attendance with achievement, indicating that even occasional broken weeks can have a negative effect. We believe that the most important factor in promoting good attendance is the development of positive attitudes towards school. In promoting good attendance, it is also hoped that this will lead to the development of habits of good attendance and punctuality for the future. We expect all children on roll to attend every day, when the school is in session, as long as they are fit and healthy enough to do so. We will also make the best provision we can for those children who, for whatever reason, are prevented from coming to school.

It is vital that children develop regular attendance habits at an early age, therefore St James Church School will encourage parents of Nursery children, and Reception children who are not yet of compulsory school age, to send their children to every session available to them. If the child is unable to attend for any reason, the parents should inform the school/nursery in the same way as with children of compulsory school age. Information specific to nursery children is in section 10 below.

Key principles:

High levels of attendance and punctuality levels are promoted and rewarded.
It is the responsibility of everybody in the school to improve attendance and punctuality.
Where attendance or punctuality is a cause for concern, steps will be taken to support an improvement.
Some children find it harder than others to attend school. We will work with children, parents, and other local partners to remove any barriers to attendance.
We work in partnership with parents.

The education of our children is of the utmost importance to us - to enable every child to achieve their best, they have to be in school. Attendance is very closely monitored. We want all children to have an attendance percentage of 97 or above.

Unless term time holidays fit one of our exceptional circumstances, they are not authorised.

Children Missing Education:

Parent(s) and/or carer(s) must ensure their child is in education (Section 7, Education Act 2006).

Parents/Carers usually enrol their child in a school or make suitable provisions to fulfil this statutory requirement. The Education Attendance Service (EAS) fulfils Somerset County Council's statutory responsibility in ensuring parents and carers have their child attend school.

When children have missed education for 10 days they may be classed as Children Missing Education and we have a statutory duty to report it, details in our policy and on the Somerset.gov website below:

School attendance and children missing education somerset.gov.uk

The LA makes suitable checks to identify any child missing from education.

Local Authority Contacts:

Contact: Children and Young People's Team

Address: Customer Contact, PO Box 618, Taunton, Somerset TA1 3WF

Email: childrens@somerset.gov.uk

Website : School attendance and children missing education (somerset.gov.uk)

Contact no: 0845 345 9122
Opening Hours: Monday to Friday 8am to 6pm, Saturday 9am to 4pm, closed Sunday.