Attendance
At Holy Family College we consider good attendance and punctuality to be an essential part of your child's education and we are sure you understand that they are important life skills.
There is a strong link between good attendance/punctuality and academic progress therefore the school's target is for each child, is for them to achieve at least 96%. To encourage this we offer regular incentive and parent/carer's receive regular attendance reports via their child's assessment.
It is parents/carers legal responsibility to make sure that you child attends school every day of the school year.
Attendance Explained
How does your child's attendance compare?
| Attendance during once school year | Equals days absence | Which is approximately ? weeks absent | Which means this number of missed lessons |
| 95% | 9 days | 2 weeks | 45 lessons |
| 90% | 19 days | 4 weeks | 95 lessons |
| 85% | 29 days | 6 weeks | 145 lessons |
| 80% | 38 days | 8 weeks | 190 lessons |
| 75% | 48 days | 10 weeks | 240 lessons |
| 70% | 57 days | 11.5 weeks | 285 lessons |
| 65% | 67 days | 13.5 weeks | 335 lessons |
Students are required to attend school for 190 days each school year.
Please remember that students who miss a lot of school achieve less.
We do encourage parent/carers to arrange medical appointments outside school hours.
If your child is absent from school, please try to contact your child's house office before 9.05am to explain the reason for the absences. Each half-day absence from school has to be recorded by the school.
Please note we only authorise 5 days of illness, after this medical evidence needs to be provided.
The following reasons will be recorded as unauthorised:
- Truanting
- Parents/carers keeping their child off/condoning the absence
- Unexplained absence
- Students arriving too late to get a morning mark
- Shopping, looking after younger siblings, birthdays, waiting in for a delivery, waiting for uniform to dry, last day of term
- Family day trips or holidays during term time
If we have concerns regarding your child's attendance we will write to you explaining our concerns.
We have a range of strategies for dealing with poor attendance/punctuality, they include:
- Letter to parents/carers explaining our concerns
- Meeting in school
- Home visits (if appropriate)
- Referral to the Education Welfare Service
- Penalty notice warning letter
- An issue of a penalty notice
- Fast track to court
Attendance Policy
Please click here for our current Attendance Policy.