ATTENDANCE & PUNCTUALITY

Attendance

Attendance is a high priority at St. Michael's. We believe that 'every day counts' and we want every child to access the excellent education we provide.

We have set ourselves a target for the 2023-2024 school year of 97% attendance. This is much higher than the national and Local Authority attendance averages but we believe it can be achieved.

We want to see all our pupils with a minimum of 95% or above attendance

At St. Michael's we see that there is a clear link between attendance and achievement. Whenever a child misses school, they miss out on important learning and the reality is, this time can never be caught up.

Regular attendance is the most important factor in a child reaching their full potential. 90% attendance actually means that your child has been away from school for half a day every week. If your child has 90% attendance for a whole year, that means that they have had nearly 4 whole weeks off school in a year. That equates to 19 days or 80 lessons.

We actively promote that coming to school is an important part of the development of an individual and our parents and pupils work in partnership with us encouraging a positive attitude and commitment to education. This is reaffirmed by the signing of the 'Home School Agreement' acknowledging that being at St. Michael's and learning will have a beneficial impact upon the learning, both academically and socially.

Our Promise to monitor and support attendance

We will contact you on the first day of an absence by telephone if you have not called in and given the reason for absence.
We will contact you if we have any concerns over attendance and punctuality.
We will monitor attendance closely.
Each month we produce an attendance report, which allows us to track attendance and monitor specific pupils or pupil groups. In cases where we have identified repeated non-attendance and have concerns, we invite parents to an Attendance Meeting, during which we discuss with the parents strategies for improving attendance. We approach each meeting with an aim to work in a cooperative partnership with parents with the child's best interests at heart.
We will support you in promoting good attendance and punctuality across the school.
We will be there for you if you contact us about issues that may be impacting on your child’s attendance. We will do our best to support you and find a solution to the problem.
The School’s Designated Safeguarding Lead and Attendance Officer will contact you if your child has persistent absence to ascertain any issues and support where needed.

What can you do? Make sure you communicate with the school.

If your child is absent from school for any reason then you must inform the school on the first day of absence by either:-

telephoning the school office on 020 88747786 stating your child's full name, class and reason for absence; or
leaving a message on the schools messaging Parentapp
emailing the school office email account : info@stmichaels.wandsworth.sch.uk stating your child's full name, class and reason for absence.

Punctuality

As with attendance, we place a high priority on punctuality. We believe that 'every second counts' and being on time is a key life skill which sets up our pupils for a successful and bright future. The impact of lateness is not only felt by the pupils themselves, in terms of missed education, but also can be disruptive for the class as a whole. We have set ourselves a target of less than 10 late arrivals per week.

We monitor punctuality closely and in cases where we have identified repeated lateness and have concerns, we invite parents to a Punctuality Meeting during which we discuss with the parents strategies for improving punctuality. We aim to work in a cooperative partnership with parents, finding solutions in our partnership to ensure that all children can reach their God-given potential.

As part of our role and responsibility as outlined in the Department of Education document 'Keeping Children Safe in Education' , those pupils who walk to school independently have a code next to their name and if they are not in school within 10 minutes of gate closure, contact is made to ascertain their whereabouts. Similarly, if a pupil is absent and no message has been received, the Office calls the parents and seeks reasons for absence. We have additional emergency contacts beyond the parents to support locating absent children.

Late collections

We also monitor and record late collections. We expect all children to be collected at the allotted time and if the child is not collected within 7 minutes of this time the parents will be contacted. If a parent or carer expects to arrive late for any reason, we ask that they inform the School Office as soon as possible. Late collection can cause upset to children and also cause added work for school staff. In cases of repeated late collection, we will arrange a meeting with parents to find an acceptable solution.

Department for Education (DfE) Documents

As a school we adhere to the documentation sent out and published by the DfE.

The Following publications become effective as of September 2022. As a school we are already working towards these goals and have the procedures in place. These will be further reinforced at the start of the new academic year.

“St. Michael’s Church of England School, established upon Christian foundations and living out the Christian faith, is committed to providing every child with an excellent education.”