At St Barnabas and St Paul's, attendance is of paramount importance.  It has been proven that children who attend school everyday and who are on time, succeed in their studies, make progress and have an improved well being.  If pupils are not in school, it becomes difficult for them to build on their skills and progress.  In addition to this, there are also heightened safeguarding concerns as to why the pupils are missing from their education.

Attendance is always a high priority in school and we work closely with our parents and the community to ensure that our pupils are in school, safe, happy and learning. 

At St Barnabas and St Paul's we understand the impact good attendance and punctuality has on our children’s learning and we believe in rewarding good attendance and punctuality to engage and motivate our children. We have many initiatives to support and celebrate attendance and punctuality so that it remains a high profile in school and with our families.

To support good attendance and punctuality, we:

• Ensure attendance is monitored daily by either the Office Team or the Inclusion Team.
• Ensure that school has a thorough and robust system for obtaining the whereabouts of all of our pupils.
• Create a culture where Attendance is everyone's responsibility and any concerns with attendance are raised promptly. 
• Hold weekly Attendance Team meetings occur in school.

• Work closely with children and families to support and encourage good attendance and punctuality. 
• Hold weekly, half-termly, and yearly celebrations of good attendance including, but not limited to, extra playtime for classes who meet the weekly attendance target; class parties for classes with the best attendance in a half term; own clothes day for children who achieve 100% attendance in a term; and a voucher for children with 100% attendance over the year.

• Share class attendance on the school newsletter and class dojo every week.

• Update our attendance display every week to celebrate good attendance.

• Celebrate improvements in school attendance.
• Meet regularly with families to support their child's attendance.
• Meet regularly with our 'Education Welfare Officer from Blackburn with Darwen' to monitor attendance. 

Every school day counts as we ensure that our children "Be the best for God that they can be."