Attendance

If your child is not in school, learning is not taking place.

If your child is absent we ask you to telephone the school before 8:30am.

ATTENDANCE LINE: 0161 499 0000 (Option 1)

Email:  attendanceteam@st-paulshigh.net

Attendance Team

Mr Paul Seddon – Lead Attendance Manager

Claire Le Marquand – Education Welfare Officer

Helen Doherty Dyson – Attendance Officer

At St Paul’s Catholic High School, we have a dedicated Attendance Team to ensure that poor attendance is not allowed to develop. We want all pupils to strive for 100% attendance and we are proud of our consistently improving attendance. We are pleased with our achievement in this area but are committed to improving attendance levels even further.

St Paul’s Catholic High School follows Manchester’s Local Authority Attendance Strategy in order to reduce absence. St Paul’s Catholic High School’s attendance policy is available on the school website.

If you have concerns about your child’s attendance, you can contact the Attendance Team or your child’s Head of Year.

If we are concerned about a child’s attendance the following steps may be taken:

Attendance Monitoring Letter: This will be sent out if we see frequent and/or irregular patterns of absence. This is our way of alerting you to the fact that your child’s attendance is starting to become a concern. We may stop authorising your child’s absence without medical evidence.

Home Visit: Attendance staff & Safeguarding staff will visit the student at home when there is a concern for a child’s attendance, after 3 days of absence or if no contact has been made to state why the child is absent from school. These can be unannounced.

Penalty Warning Letter: This will be sent out when a child has unauthorised absences. Once this letter has been sent, absences cannot be authorised without medical evidence to state that your child is unfit for school. If your child is absent for a medical appointment, we require the letter or appointment card in order to authorise this absence.  Only the duration of the medical appointment will be authorised.

Early Help Assessment (EHA): We may offer to support your child’s attendance by putting an EHA into place, this allows us to draw in agency support should we need it.

Penalty Notice/Prosecution: If your child’s attendance does not improve following any or all the above interventions, the Local Authority may choose to issue parents with a Penalty Notice or prosecute for their children’s non-attendance at school.

Punctuality
School starts at 8.40am each day.  The school, by law has to take a register of pupils first thing in the morning and at some point in the afternoon.  If a pupil is late but the register is still open they are marked as late.  If a pupil arrives late and the register is closed, without a satisfactory explanation, it may be classed as an unauthorised absence.  This may lead to legal action for not ensuring regular and punctual school attendance.

For example, if a child arrives at school 15 minutes late each day they lose almost 2 weeks of education a year!

Medical Appointments

If there is something we need to know regarding your child’s health which may impact on their attendance, please speak to the attendance team. We ask you to make every attempt to book non-urgent medical appointments after school or during the school holidays. Students with unavoidable medical and dental appointments during the school day are asked to bring in the appointment card in order to sign out of school at the appropriate time.  If a student has a morning appointment they should attend school as soon as possible and receive their afternoon mark. If a student has a mid-morning appointment, they should come into school for registration, sign out in time for their appointment and then come back for the rest of the school day.

Leave of Absence

The Department for Education regulations state that Headteachers may not grant any leave of absence during term time unless there are exceptional circumstances. If exceptional circumstances arise you must take the following steps:

• Apply in writing as soon as possible to the Attendance Team stating the reason for absence and the duration of leave requested.
• The Attendance Team will respond in writing to your request.
• Must be done in advance of the leave of absence.

If leave of absence is denied and you take your child/children out of school, the absence will be unauthorised. This may result in the following legal action being taken against you – under the Anti-Social Behaviour Act 2003 an authorised officer of the City Council has the power to issue each parent/carer with a Penalty Notice for each of their children who fail to attend school regularly.

Penalty Notices issued for unauthorised absences incur a fine of £160 to be paid within 28 days, which is reduced to £80 if paid within 21 day of the notice being served. Failure to pay a Penalty Notice may result in a prosecution.

It is widely recognised that the educational outcomes and future life chances of children and young people can be significantly impacted upon by periods of absence. We thank you for supporting us in ensuring that your son/daughter attends school, on time, every day.

Absence for Religious Observance

Please note, we will only ever authorise 1 day’s absence for religious observance during term time.

Attendance – Lates

Please be advised that from 28th October 2024, students who arrive late to school after 9.10am will incur a U code on the register. This means students have arrived late after the close of registers and is classed as an unauthorised absence. U codes will affect a student’s attendance percentage. Unauthorised absences will lead to statutory action. If you need any advice and support please contact the Attendance Team attendanceteam@st-paulshigh.net

Poor Punctuality

Students who are repeatedly late to school or lessons will monitored by the Attendance and Pastoral teams and targets for improvement identified. Sanctions including detentions will be issued to address the issue if there are no improvements.