The School Day and School Attendance

The school gates open at 8.30am each morning and are locked at 8.45am. We ask that children arrive at school no later than 8.40am so they are in class by 8.45am, ready to learn.

Attending Medical Appointments During the School Day

We completely understand that children sometimes need to attend medical appointments, and we appreciate that it is not always possible to arrange these outside of school hours. However, where you can, we kindly ask that routine or non-urgent appointments, such as dentist, optician or routine doctor’s appointments, are booked outside the school day. This helps to minimise time away from learning and supports your child’s attendance.

If your child does need to attend an unavoidable medical appointment during the school day, please let the school office know in advance and provide evidence of the appointment. This allows us to keep our attendance records up to date and helps us to minimise any disruption to your child’s day.

Please note that we are unable to authorise an absence where a child is absent from school because they are accompanying another family member to a medical appointment.

School Attendance

Attendance Matters

At St Anne’s, we aim for 100% attendance for all of our pupils. A school year consists of 190 days for pupils. Of course, we know that sometimes people are unwell and so inevitably, there are times when children and staff will become ill and be unable to attend school. At St Anne’s, we believe 97%+ reflects excellent attendance.

In order to promote the best attendance possible, appointments (e.g. doctors / dentist) should be made outside of the school day wherever possible and holiday absence during term-time will not be authorised unless exceptional circumstances apply. If a term-time absence is unavoidable, the school office should be notified four weeks in advance.

Unauthorised absences that accumulate to 10 sessions / 5 days within a rolling 10-week period can lead to a penalty charge being issued by the LA. The fine for school absences across the country will be £80 if paid within 21 days, or £160 if paid within 28 days.  In the case of repeated fines, if a parent receives a second fine for the same child within any three-year period, this will be charged at the higher rate of £160. 

Fines per parent will be capped to two fines within any three-year period. Once this limit has been reached, other action like a parenting order or prosecution will be considered.  If you’re prosecuted and attend court because your child hasn’t been attending school, you could get a fine of up to £2,500. Money raised via fines is only used by the local authority to cover the costs of administering the system, and to fund attendance support. Any extra money is returned to the government. 

Please be aware that unauthorised absence marks may also accrue if a child is regularly late for school.

 Our school day starts at 08:45am, children arriving after this time will be marked as late.

 Afternoon registration is 12:45pm for the Infants and 1.15pm for the juniors. 

The foundation of securing good attendance is to ensure that St Anne’s is a calm, orderly, safe, and supportive environment, where all pupils are happy, eager and ready to learn. Where parents decide to have their child registered at school, they have an additional legal duty to ensure their child attends that school regularly and is punctual. We want to work in partnership with you all to ensure the best outcomes for all our pupils and their families.