Attendance is taken very seriously here at St Mark's. Below you will find important information regarding absence from school.

If your child is unwell and therefore unable to attend school, please can you telephone or email the school office, before 09:30am, to report their absence. You can leave a message on the school answer machine before school hours if this is more convenient. We have a dedicated absence email to report absences or send us any appointment information which is absence@stmarks.bwmat.org

Parents’ responsibilities

What are my responsibilities for my child’s attendance?

As a parent, you are legally responsible for making sure your child gets a suitable fulltime education, usually from the age of 5 to 16.

For most parents, this will mean making sure your child is in school every day except when:

- Your child is too ill to go to school.

- You have permission for a leave of absence from your child’s school for them not to attend. You should only ask for this in exceptional circumstances. Generally, a holiday would not be classed as an exceptional circumstance.

- Your religious body has a day especially for religious observance.

There are also some other circumstances. For example, where:

- Your local council is responsible for arranging your child’s transport to school and it is not available on that day or has not been provided yet.

- Your child attends an independent school that is beyond walking distance from home and your local council has not arranged for your child to board at or near the school or attend another school closer to home.

- Your child does not have a permanent address and you are required to travel for work. (This exception only applies if your child attends their usual school)

If my child needs to be absent from school, what do I need to do?

You should contact school as early as possible on the first day of absence to explain why. If you do not, your child’s school will contact you on the first morning of their absence to find out why your child is not in school.

All parents can request a ‘leave of absence’ for their child which gives them permission to be absent from school. Your child’s school has the final say over whether to approve the request and for how long your child can be absent. Generally, a leave of absence would not be allowed for a holiday.

My child has a short term illness. Do they have to go to school, and will I be penalised if they don’t?

If your child is ill, read the NHS’s ‘Is my child too ill for school?’ advice to help you decide whether they can go to school.

If they are too ill to attend, you are not breaking the law and will not be penalised. You should let the school know as soon as possible on the first day of absence and schools must record such absences as authorised. If the absence due to illness is ongoing or frequent you should speak to your child’s school to see what support can be put in place.

Do I need to provide medical evidence to support my child’s illness related absence?

If your child is too ill to attend school, schools must record these absences as authorised. In the majority of cases medical evidence is not needed, but schools may ask you for evidence where:

- Your child is regularly absent because of illness, to assess how they can help your child by putting the right support in place.

- In a small number of cases where they have reason to believe your child was not too ill to attend and a conversation cannot resolve the issue.

If you are asked to provide evidence this does not need to be a letter from your doctor or consultant, and doctors will not usually provide such letters. It can, instead, be appointment cards, prescriptions, or notes of previous consultations (including from the NHS App).

A lack of written evidence must not prevent the right support being put in place or the absence being authorised if you can demonstrate your child was, or is, unable to attend, or is awaiting treatment. If you are asked for evidence you cannot provide, a conversation with the school can help to resolve the issue.

What should I do if my child needs a dental or medical appointment in school time?

To avoid disruption to your child’s attendance, medical and dental appointments should not be booked during the school day whenever reasonably possible. When they are, you should ask the school in advance for a leave of absence and collect them as close to the time of the appointment as possible and return them to school for the rest of the school day afterwards.

Further information can be founds here: Parent's Responsibilities 

From the 2024-25 school year, there will be new national rules on how penalty notices for school absence are used. The new rules mean that all schools must consider giving a penalty notice to a parent when a child has missed 10 or more sessions (5 days) for unauthorised reasons within a 10 school week period, and support to help your child be in school is not appropriate. If support would help improve attendance, that should be provided by the school or local council rather than a penalty notice. You cannot be given a penalty notice for absence that is authorised by the school (such as illness). A penalty notice will usually only be issued in cases of holidays taken in school time, or for other reasons where the school or council is trying to help attendance to improve and you are not engaging in that support or it is not working and they believe that a penalty notice would improve attendance. Your school or council can still decide to issue a penalty notice or proceed to prosecution for less amounts of absence than 10 sessions (5 days) if support is not appropriate and they think it would improve attendance. For example, if parents are often taking shorter holidays in school time to deliberately avoid a fine.