ATTENDANCE 

In law every parent of a child of compulsory school age has a duty to ensure that their child attends full-time education (section 7 of the Education Act 1996). Parents of a registered pupil whose child fails to attend school regularly are committing an offence under section 444(1) Education Act 1996.  In April 2017, the Supreme Court held that attending school "regularly" means attendance in accordance with the rules prescribed by the school and not "sufficiently frequent attendance". This means that a child must attend school on every day that the school requires him or her to do so and failure to do this may lead to the commission of an offence.

At St John the Baptist we are committed to meeting our obligation with regards to school attendance through our whole-school culture and ethos that values good attendance, including:

• Promoting good attendance
• Reducing absence, including persistent and severe absence
• Ensuring every pupil has access to the full-time education to which they are entitled
• Acting early to address patterns of absence
• Building strong relationships with families to ensure pupils have the support in place to attend school
• Promoting and supporting punctuality

For more details please read our Attendance Policy