Attendance
Regular and punctual attendance at school is a legal requirement and essential for pupils to maximise their educational opportunities. At St John's, we expect every pupil to have at least 96% attendance. We want all of our pupils to achieve their full potential. Barriers such as poor attendance will hinder, delay or stop their progress. Our Attendance Policy, found on our Policies page, provides information on how we monitor, reward and support attendance.
Morning timings
Our school gates open at 8.30am, and children must be in their classes for registration by 8.45am at the latest.
Illness
If your child is ill, please read the NHS’s guidance to help you decide whether they can come to school: https://www.nhs.uk/live-well/is-my-child-too-ill-for-school/ . This includes guidance and links for support if your child is feeling anxious about attending school. It is generally safe to send your child to school with a runny nose, a sore throat or a headache. Of course, if your child is vomiting, is very unwell, or has a high temperature of 38C or above you will need to keep them at home. Rest assured that our staff care for your children, and if they feel that your child becomes too unwell to be in school we will contact you.
If your child has sickness and or diarrhoea, please do not allow them to return to school until 48 hours after their last episode.
Medical evidence
In the majority of cases where you feel your child is too ill to attend school, medical evidence is not needed, but we are authorised to ask you for evidence where your child is regularly absent because of illness. If you are asked to provide evidence this does not need to be a letter from your doctor or consultant; it can be appointment cards, prescriptions, or notes of previous consultations.
Medical and dental appointments
To avoid disruption to your child’s attendance, medical and dental appointments should not be booked during the school day whenever reasonably possible. When they are, you should ask the school in advance for a leave of absence and collect your child as close to the time of the appointment as possible and return them to school for the rest of the school day afterwards.
Unauthorised absence and Penalty Notices
It should be noted that Penalty Notice fine amounts are set by the Department for Education, and schools do not receive this money. All fines are paid to the local authority, who must use it to provide continued attendance support to families and schools.
The fine for taking a child out of school during term time is £80 per child. If this fine is not paid in the first 21 days following the penalty notice, it will rise to £160. This will be doubled if it happens again within three years. Those with a third fine in a three-year period face prosecution. There is no right to appeal a penalty notice.
All schools are required to consider a fine when a child has missed 10 or more sessions (5 days) for any unauthorised reasons, including a term-time holiday.
