Attendance

At St Francis we promote good attendance to enable pupils to reach their potential and take full advantage of the educational opportunities we offer. Our Home School Link Worker monitors attendance daily and works closely with families to support good attendance and punctuality.

The official start to the school day is 8.40am. We ask parents to ensure that children arrive at school and be in classrooms in good time for registration each morning at 8.50am. We take responsibility for children on site from 8.35am; therefore no child should be on the premises unsupervised before 8.35am.

Children should be collected promptly at 3:10pm (gates open at 3:05pm), which is the end of the school day. If an unavoidable delay occurs parents need to contact the school as soon as possible.

What to do if your child is absent from school

Please phone on the first day of absence leaving your child’s name, class and reason for absence.  This needs to be done every day that your child is absent from school.  These messages may be left on the absence line by pressing 1 on the school telephone line.

Leave of Absence during Term Time

Following recent changes to government legislation, there is no entitlement to any holiday leave for families during term time. If there are exceptional reasons for requesting leave, parents must arrange a time to meet with either our Home School Link Worker or Headteacher. If holidays are taken without authorisation, the absences will be marked as unauthorised and reported to the Attendance and Engagement team.  The letter below details action that could be taken in the event of unauthorised holiday being taken:

Unauthorised Holiday
Attendance Policy 2023-2024