Attendance

Attendance matters.  We know that there is a link between good attendance in school and children who thrive socially, emotionally and in their learning.

Every day in school can make a difference to a child’s future.  it develops good habits, resilience and happy children.  Good attendance in school is vital.  We classify good attendance as 96%.

Promoting Good Attendance

At St George's, we are committed to ensuring that every child receives the best possible start in life.  Regular attendance is not only a legal requirement, but it is also vital for your child to achieve their full potential—academically, socially, and emotionally.

We want every child to thrive in a safe, happy, respectful place to learn.   if your child is not feeling positive about coming to school our staff team will work with families to improve this.  We should all work together and ensure all children attend school every day that they can. 

Good attendance is a habit formed early. We know that children in school are:

• Safer. Children with poor attendance are much more at risk of online safety issues and over time much more at risk of crime.
• Mentally and physically healthier.
• Perform much better at school and achieve higher earnings; improving their life chances.

Research shows that good attendance is directly linked to higher achievement and better long-term outcomes. 

Even a small number of absences can have a significant impact on your child’s learning.    Children who are frequently absent often find it more difficult to keep up with lessons, build friendships, and feel part of the school community. 

Our Expectations

1. Children should arrive on time at their allocated start time, ready to begin the day.  Our school timetable can be read on the school’s website.
2. We aim for as high attendance as possible.  We classify good attendance as 96%+.  That means a child would be in school for at least 183 days in a year (are 190 days in a school year).
3. If your child is going to be absent, please inform the school office as early as possible, ideally before the start of the school day, with the reason for their absence.  You can do this:

1.  By Using the Compass App

2.  E-mailing schooloffice@stgeorges.wirral.sch.uk 

3.  Calling us and leaving a message on our absence answer phone.  

Please remember to share your child’s full name, their class and the reason why they are absent.

Note that wherever possible, medical or dental appointments should be made outside of school hours.

Promoting Good Attendance

Our key strategy is to work with our children and families to promote good attendance.  We do this through:

• Making school a welcoming and positive place to be every day for our children and families.  We want our children to always feel welcomed, keen to learn and supported.
• Celebrating good attendance through class prizes, attendance awards and celebrations.
• Sharing attendance news in our newsletter, family communication, assemblies and website.
• Working with individual children and families to set improvement targets when attendance improvement is required.

Mrs Kell, our Inclusion administration officer puts a huge level of effort into these initiatives working with staff across the school to ensure that our message is a positive one. 

At St George's we run a positive reward scheme every week to celebrate and promote good attendance with each year group awarding a class trophy for the class with the best attendance.  Six wins results in an attendance party. 

 

Working With Families to Improve Attendance

 We have  entered a national crisis regarding school attendance for many children. We need to work with our families to help improve this.

Put simply, children are missing more school than before. 

Government has united children's commissioner, chief medical officers and school leaders to help drive this campaign.

It is feared that Covid-19 disruption, strike closures and other recent factors have affected everybody’s attitude towards attending school and the impact this has on our children’s right to thrive. This was highlighted in a recent report from Public First who concluded that;

"There has been a profound breakdown in parental attitudes to the idea of full-time school attendance in the years since the Coronavirus pandemic.".

We know that being in school helps children thrive socially, academically and improves their life chances. We need to improve this and ensure that:

• Children are in school as often as possible.
• We work with families to ensure that children are supported to be in school and we overcome any difficulties that they may be having. School needs to be a safe, happy place to learn for all our children.
• We challenge absence habits.  Chief medical officers have highlighted that children shouldn't be off school for mild illness. The chief medical officers wrote an open letter to encourage us all to get children into school even when they are managing mild illness.  This can be read by clicking here.

Requesting Leave of Absence from School

• At St George's we are very clear that leave from school will only be granted on very rare occasions.  Our policy states what those exceptional circumstances are.
• If unauthorised leave is taken we will work with our council officers to challenge this and apply fixed penalty notice fines if they are required.
• All parents must inform us if they are applying to take leave from school.  They can do this using our online Google form Under the new national framework, all schools will be required to consider a fine when a child has missed 10 or more sessions (5 days) for unauthorised reasons.

  From August 2024, the fine for school absences across the country will be £80 if paid within 21 days, or £160 if paid within 28 days.  Note that this is per parent for each child.  More information below.

School Response to Attendance Concerns

• If your child has low attendance the school will contact you to look at how we can support and intervene.    We will always aim to support families.
• If your child's attendance drops below 90% this is a trigger point for intervention.  They are classified as being persistently absent from school.  This means they are missing 20 days in a school year.  Government, council and OFSTED would expect to see evidence that our school has worked with families to improve attendance.

 

• • St Georges and Wirral Schools Updated Attendance Policy and Strategy Septmeber 2024 download_for_offline
    download_for_offlineSt Georges and Wirral Schools Updated Attendance Policy and Strategy Septmeber 2024

   

Ensuring Good Communication

We will ensure that attendance communication is clear and regular.  Below you can read our start of year attendance newsletter.  

attendance letter september 2025.pdf

 Updates will be shared via Compass app, newsletters and school website.

Working With Wirral Council

The Wirral #EveryDayCounts campaign is a council and partner campaign to improve school attendance in Wirral to achieve better outcomes for children and young people.

Wirral Council, along with a number of partner agencies, community organisations and schools are working together to encourage parents to do all they can to encourage regular attendance, or speak out if they need advice or support.

We will invite our council attendance officer to support us with families if their attendance is below 90%

Letter below outlines council's stance to enforcement from September 2024.  

We welcome this clarity. Full letter can be read below.  It states expectations on parents are:

• That you will ensure that your child attends school regularly which was defined by the Supreme Court in 2017 as every day the school is open except when a statutory reason applies and that you notify the school as soon as possible when your child has to be unexpectedly absent
• That you only request leave of absence in exceptional circumstances and that you do so in advance
• That where possible you book medical appointments around the school day but when this cannot be avoided and your child has an appointment in school time you notify the school in advance
• That you work with your child’s school and the Local Authority to help with the understanding of any barriers to your child attending school regularly
• That you engage with support offered including such things as accessing Family Toolbox ( Family Toolbox - Tips and tools for family life in Wirral) or your child accessing Zillo ( zillowirral)or attending meetings to prevent the need for more formal support including legal intervention I

In addition to outlining the expectations on parents, schools and Local Authorities, the Department for Education has also made changes to penalty notices as you may have seen in the media. 

The cost of each penalty notice will increase for any offences committed after 19th August to £80 if paid within 21 days and £160 if paid between day 22 and day 28 after being issued for the first offence. One of the changes introduced from 19th August is that where a parent takes the child out of school and commits a second offence within a rolling three year period the penalty notice amount will automatically be set at the £160.

For any third offence in the rolling three year period there will be no penalty notice but there will be a prosecution. Penalty notices are issued per parent per child. 

wirral council letter to all parents rgearding attendance july 24.pdf

 

 

The benefits of regular school attendance includes:

• learning and exploring variety subjects and topics
• having experiences beyond the classroom
• access to opportunities that you may not often have access to in your community
• chance of making friends,
• gaining skills for life that create opportunities to succeed and enjoy life in adulthood
• higher chance to gain qualifications
• positive impact on mental and physical wellbeing

If you are a parent or carer concerned about your child’s attendance, speak to us for support and advice.

Alternatively, for more support visit the Wirral Sendlo website for advice.