Attendance

Please see below to learn more about attendance at St Gabriel’s.

SLT Attendance link:

Mrs Cull – Deputy Headteacher, Culture and Standards

Attendance Officer:

Mrs Aldred

School Day

School opens for students at 8:00 am – 8:40 am with Breakfast Club
Official start of the day begins at 8:40 am
Official end of the school day is 3:10 pm
Official weekly hours 32 hrs 30 minutes

Expectations

All students to aim to achieve 100% attendance and should not have attendance less than 96% in any half term period.

Reason

It is the law that all children attend school every day.
Being absent from school negatively impacts on a student’s academic performance.
Students with poor attendance get poor grades.
Poor attendance reduces a student’s chance of being offered a place at the college of their choice.
Poor attendance will prevent them from taking part in events, such as the Prom, school trips – and Year 11 students will have privileges withdrawn!

Impact of Poor Attendance

There are only 39 weeks in a school year and there are 13 weeks holiday, therefore:

365 days in a year	190 school days in total	Absence
100%	190 days attendance	0
95%	180 days attendance	2 weeks
90%	171 days attendance	4 weeks
85%	162 days attendance	6 weeks (nearly)
80%	153 days attendance	Over a half term absence

Poor attendance is not tolerated at school or at any place of work.
A child who is regularly absent from school will be categorised under Government Legislation as a PA (Persistent Absentee). This means your child’s attendance at school will be scrutinised and failure to rectify this issue will mean parents will be issued with a Penalty Notice Fine or Court Prosecution.
The Headteacher can only authorise an absence from school (max. 10 days) in exceptional circumstances. Failure for a child to attend within the 10 days following the expiry of the period for which leave was granted, could lead in extreme cases of the child being taken off roll.

From September 2024: Penalty notices will be issued for any 10 unauthorised absences within a 10-week period (this is equivalent to 5 schools days). Penalty notices will rise to £160, per child, per parent. If paid within 21 days, this will be reduced to £80. If a second penalty notice is issued, this will be at £160 but will not have the option of being reduced. A 3rd penalty notice cannot be issued within 3 years of the first one. If the threshold (10 sessions) is met for a 3rd time, this will result in prosecution.

Attendance and punctuality at St Gabriel’s is good, and for the vast majority of our families these changes will have no impact at all, but one of our biggest issues is around families taking holidays during school time – and following guidelines, we will never be allowed to authorise holidays during school time.

To help support families further, please be aware that our procedures are as follows:

You must always notify school if you child is going to be absent from school before 9:00am on the day of absence.
1st absence – school will contact home.
2nd absence – school will contact home.
3rd absence – school will conduct a home visit.
4th absence – school will contact to invite you in for an attendance meeting.