September 2024

Dear Parents and Carers,

At St Francis Xavier's, we have high expectations for pupils’ attendance. We want to work in partnership with our families to ensure that children do not miss periods of school unnecessarily. The children are at the heart of our attendance policy. It is in every child's interest that they attend school on every day that school is open.  Our staff work hard to carefully sequence learning for all of the children and if lessons are missed, it can be difficult for children to understand new learning.

There are robust procedures in place to follow up a child’s absence. We appreciate all communications with parents so that we understand individual circumstances.  Please let us know if there is anything we can do to help you as parents and carers regarding attendance. We like to ensure that our pupils love to learn, love seeing their friends and love one another.

We are very grateful to our families in their efforts to minimise a child’s absence from school. It is very much appreciated.

The government published 'Working Together to Improve School Attendance' on 19 August 2024 and para 11 page 8 states:

"Where parents decide to have their child registered at school, they have an additional legal duty to ensure their child attends that school regularly. This means their child must attend every day that the school is open, except in a small number of allowable circumstances such as being too ill to attend or being given permission for an absence in advance from the school."

The full document can be read by following the link below:

Working together to improve school attendance - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)

In line with Government and Herefordshire Local Authority policy, planned absences for holidays during term time are not authorised by St Francis Xavier’s RC School. In exceptional circumstances, absences can be authorised at the discretion of the headteacher, but only if there are strong and clearly explained reasons why the absence is necessary. Exceptional circumstances are rare, significant or unavoidable, which means the event could not reasonably be rescheduled at another time.

There is, however, no legal entitlement for time off in school term time to go on holiday. Parents who take unauthorised holiday may be referred to Herefordshire Council who may issue a penalty notice or initiate legal proceedings against them under the Education Act 1996 (Section 444). Parents who exceed agreed return by dates following absences, risk losing their child’s school place at St Francis Xavier’s and having to re-register with the Local Authority for a new school place.

Please do not book holidays without first checking the term dates on our school website. Please could I urge you to encourage all family members to double check term dates before planning any holiday, so that pupils do not take any time off during term time to avoid missing valuable learning time. If a penalty notice is issued from the Local Authority, it will be sent to parents for payment.

Punctuality

Please could I also remind everyone that the school gate opens at 8.40am giving parents a window of 15 minutes to drop off their children before 8.55am when the school gate closes. Parents are expected to drop their children off punctually, before 8.55am, to aid the smooth start of the school day. Pupils arriving after 8.55am will be marked as ‘Late’ and from Wednesday 21st February 2024, parents will be asked to sign the ‘Late Register’ so that we can monitor those parents who persistently drop their children off late in the mornings.  At times being late is unavoidable due to exceptional circumstances but if children are persistently late, we will work together to address the issues causing the lateness. Our children are engaged in early morning activity such as arithmetic, handwriting or spelling or simply talking to their friends and teachers to ensure a readiness to learn when lessons begin. If your child persistently misses early morning activity, it can result in a lack of progress in some areas.

I look forward to continue working with everyone to maximise your child’s attendance and punctuality at St Francis Xavier’s School.

With kind regards,

Mrs Elizabeth Christopherson

Head teacher

St Francis Xavier's RC Primary School

Every school Day Counts

Absence = poor progress and continuity

Poor attendance significantly impacts upon your child’s educational outcome.

Punctuality counts

Lateness = lost learning

(Figures below are calculated over a school year)

Please be on time, every day, to support your child’s learning.