Attendance

Working Together to Improve School Attendance

Encouraging regular school attendance is one of the most powerful ways you can prepare your child for success, both in school and in life. When you make school attendance a priority, you help your child get better grades, develop healthy life habits, avoid dangerous behaviour and have a better chance of achieving their full potential.

Students who attend school regularly also feel more connected to their community, develop important social skills and friendships. We aim to support students and their families to maintain excellent attendance and improve their attendance over time. However, persistent absence (this means children who attend less than 90%) may require further intervention such as Early Help Assessment, Pastoral Support Review or leading to a penalty notice.

Regular attendance at school is crucial to each student making the best possible progress. Attendance levels are expected to be above 97% and any student falling below this level will be monitored carefully. Please make every effort to send your child to school each day.

St George's Academy Attendance Champion is Mrs Claire Crawshaw, Senior Vice Principal.

Daily Procedures

  • Students must be in their form rooms by 8.45am ready for registration with their form tutor.
  • If your child is unable to come to school for any reason please contact the Academy through your MCAS app before 8am ideally so that it can be processed, or as soon as possible that morning. Please provide your Child’s full name, registration group and reason why they are absent. We require this every morning that they are absent.
  • If we haven’t had a reason for your child's absence by 10am, a Bromcom message will be sent out to parents/carers. It is really important to respond to the message otherwise the absence will be unauthorised.

New Statutory Guidance to Improve School Attendance (September 24)

The new statutory guidance called 'Working together to Improve School Attendance' will be followed from September 2024. Please find below information around this legislation. 

A Guide to Understanding Attendance at St George's Academy

DfE Working Together to Improve School Attendance

Attendance Procedure Flow Chart

Understanding Attendance & Absence Coding 

Penalty Notice / Fine Information

LCC Attendance Roadmap

LCC Penalty Notice Poster

Medical / Dental Appointments

Medical and dental appointments should be arranged out of school hours wherever possible. On the rare occasion that this is not possible, please report this in advance using methods above including;

  • Date
  • Time
  • Reason for absence- we can then code this absence appropriately.

Holidays

The Department of Education changed the regulations regarding requests for family holidays during term time. Requests for family holidays taken in term time are not permitted. A holiday taken in term time will be unauthorised and may result in a penalty notice (PN) unless there are extenuating circumstances. Please fill in the application below and email it to stga@st-georges-academy.org , if you feel you have extenuating circumstances.

Application for Authorisation of Absence for Holidays in Term Time

Download (PDF) Download (Word)

Useful Links

For further guidance please find helpful links below:


Academy Attendance Policy Academy Attendance Procedure

Academy Success starts with ATTENDANCE

Missing school for just a few days a year can damage student progress and chances of gaining good exam results. Employers always ask about attendance & punctuality.

WELL DONE! 100-97%

100% attendance prize draw termly. You have never or rarely missed a day. If you have; it has been an authorised reason. You will expect to achieve the best interim grades and make the most progress.
TARGET: Well done! Keep it up!

AIM FOR GREEN 97-95%

You are likely to achieve grades which will give you a real opportunity to do well in all your lessons.
TARGET: You should be aiming for GREEN. Look at your absence reasons, can some be avoided?

SERIOUS RISK OF UNDERACHIEVING 94-90%

You are at risk of failing to meet your expected targets because of missing valuable teaching and learning time. Why are you absent so often? Is there a problem that we can help you with at school? Talk with someone about support before it is too late.

EXTREME CONCERN UNDER 90%

Why are you absent so often? Is there a problem we can help you with at school? Talk to someone about support before it is too late. You will be involved in family meetings with AO to monitor any issues, support will be offered. Lack of improvement could lead to Government prosecution.
TARGET: URGENT!! Make the required changes before it is too late.

Our process is in line with Lincolnshire education authority:
Student progress manager and attendance officer meet regularly to discuss students and monitor figures; 

  • PN Personalised Holiday Letter (Bi-annually to each parent/carer for each child)
  • Monitoring Letter
  • Letter 1
  • Letter 2
  • Letter 3 - Panel Meeting
  • Attendance Improvement Plan
  • Letter 4 - Notice to improve
  • Letter 5 - PN Fining Letter
  • A home visit/welfare check must be carried out if we have not seen a child after 5 days in school. (By Attendance Officers)

Information passed on to county that can lead to;  

  • Fines
  • Court
  • Attendance order
Impact of absence on student progress

As you can see from the table below:

  • If a student attends at least 95% of the time they will improve their expected outcomes by around half a grade per subject
  • Once attendance drops below 90%, progress is negatively impacted.
  • At 80% attendance, typically students will underachieve by around 1 grade per subject.
  • Extremely low attendance has a significant impact on outcomes.
  • The difference between 100% attendance and 80% attendance is almost two grades of progress per subject.
PERCENTAGE
ATTENDANCE		 NUMBERS OF LESSONS MISSED (EQUIVALENT TO) NUMBER OF DAYS ABSENT (EQUIVALENT TO)

IMPACT ON ACADEMIC PROGRESS (PROPORTION OF GRADES PER SUBJECT)
100% 0 0

+0.73

95%

47.5

9.5

+0.46
90% 95 19

-0.28
85% 142.5 28.5

-0.64

80%

190

38

-0.95
50% 475 95

-2.83

A student who is not in an exam year will miss key learning and skills which are needed to embed their knowledge across the curriculum. Unfortunately they will have 'gaps' in their learning, which students then find it difficult to catch up.

Therefore the golden rule is to have no more than 9 days off during the Academic School Year!