Attendance & Punctuality at St Bernadette’s

We have the highest aspirations for your child: attendance and punctuality is highly important to your child’s education, every lesson counts towards your child’s achievement.  When children do not attend or are late, it can have a negative impact on their progress and learning.  There a proven link between attendance and children’s academic achievement.

We will send you letters when a child hits a trigger for attendance as we want to work with parents to ensure that pupils are attending every day and on time, we understand that pupils can fall ill on occasions but we ask for you as a parent to send in medical evidence if a child is off.

What about absences?

There may be times when your child has to miss school because she or he is ill.  Please notify us of this on the first day (and every other day) of absence.  Please try to make routine appointments such as dental check-ups during the school holidays or after school hours.

Holidays in term time

The school does not authorise holidays in term-time, however, you still need to complete a leave of absence form for any holiday taken.

What can you do to help?

Make sure your child arrives at school on time every day.  Make sure your child understands that you do not approve of them missing school and be on the alert for any particular reasons for non-attendance, such as friendship issues or problems with school work, please discuss these with us as early as possible.

If you think you might need to take your child out of school, discuss the reasons with the school as early as possible.  If your child is ill or absent for any other reason, contact the school on the first day of absence – call the office on 01902 894787, select option 2 and leave a message with your child’s name, class and reason for absence or email [email protected].This can be done 24 hours a day.