ATTENDANCE AT ST. MARY’S IS IMPROVING BECAUSE THE SCHOOL’S CLEAR AND EFFECTIVE STRATEGY IS FOLLOWED BY ALL STAFF MEMEBERS.  

High priority is given to good attendance:  

At St Mary’s it is our duty to consistently strive to achieve a goal of 100% attendance for all pupils. St Mary’s focuses on the ‘unspoken contract’ (Amanda Spielman) between parents and schools and highlights the importance of good attendance to parents and carers on a regular basis.  

Everyone is accountable for monitoring attendance across the school.  

The school ensures attendance is a high priority by: 

• Highlighting the importance of attendance in staff meetings, SLT meetings as well as internal class review meetings. 

• Encouraging staff to raise concerns about pupil attendance throughout the year 

• Taking appropriate and rapid action once a concern has been raised e.g. face to face welfare check-in, phone call, informal meeting. 

• Logging the attendance of persistent absenteeism and monitoring it regularly until it shows a sustained improvement.  

• Sending termly attendance letters to those pupils whose attendance is 90% or below and arranging meetings with parents/carers if improvements are not made.  

• Acknowledging to parents regarding attendance when improvements have been made. 

• Headteacher is the attendance lead, therefore regularly monitors attendance issues.  

• Ensuring the governing body is regularly updated about attendance issues. 

• Providing parents with regular information regarding the importance of attendance e.g. New Parents’ Meetings, meet the teacher meetings, school newsletters, parents’ evenings 

Analysis of low attendance and causes of low attendance:  

The school analyses attendance data by group and on an individual basis.  

• Groups analysed -  SEN, EAL, FSM, ethnicity 

• Individually: All pupils whose termly attendance is 90% or below. These pupils are monitored consistently and effectively until sustained improvement is evident. 

• PA pupils’ – individually and by key groups ( SEN , EAL, PP, class a) 

Causes of low attendance are illness, holiday and in a few cases, children not wanting to come to school.  

Clear and effective strategy (See behaviour strategy flow chart below): 

• The school analyses attendance data regularly in order to highlight issues and to stop any trends in key groups forming.   

• The school maintains good relationships with parents and as a result parents feel comfortable discussing attendance issues with the first point of contact – attendance administrator. 

• All staff who work with children are committed to high attendance levels and they feel comfortable raising issues with senior staff when concerns arise.  

• Letters are sent to parents to highlight poor attendance. Logs are kept by attendance administrator and lead; the pupils’ attendance is monitored regularly and consistently. Attendance Administrator maintains contact with these parents and carers.  

• Meetings are arranged with Class Teacher / Phase leaders / Pastoral or Parent Support Assistant followed by the Headteacher, if attendance does not improve.  

• Emails or telephone calls are also sent when attendance has improved.   

• Parent newsletters highlight the impact of taking holidays out of school time.  

• High attendance is celebrated with 100% attendance awards at the end of the school year. 

Improvement:  

The school’s attendance record is improving. In 2021/2022 the PA percentage was 22.3%; 2022/2023 the PA percentage was 15.5% but in 2023-2024 it had reduced to 13.92%.