‘Every School Day Counts’ – Queen of Angels Primary School
Duirng March and April of this year we decided to take part in the ‘Every School Day Counts’ initiative. Now that restrictions have lifted, and we are all now back in the routine of school life we wanted to encourage punctuality and good attendance with our pupils.
During this four week programme children are encouraged to improve their punctuality and school attendance every day for twenty days in a row.
This initiative was supported by our School Completion Programme coordinator Peter Lennon and our Educational Welfare Officer Yvonne Tougher.
We found that this twenty day challenge was hugely beneficial for the chidren in our school and each week of the challenge we could see a marked improvement in the children’s attendance.
Each week the class with the highest percentage of attendance that week were offered a ‘Bonus Breakfast’ as a prize. Spot prizes were also given out at the assemblies each week to encourage the children to keep up their good attendance.
There was also an art competition with the theme ‘Every School Day Counts’ for both parents and children. This was hugely successful and we were astounded by the high amount of entries and the creativity which each entry displayed.
At the end of the twenty day challenge we held a whole school assembly where our our School Completion Officer Peter Lennon and our Educational Welfare Officer Yvonne Tougher were both present.
A raffle was held for each class and spot prizes were distributed to pupils who took part in the challenge.
Children who had 100% attendance and punctuality over the twenty day challenge were awarded with a special spot prize and certificate.
Vouchers were given as spot prizes for the 1st, 2nd and joint 3rd place winners of the parent’s art competition and spot prizes were given each winner from each class also.
This initiative created a wonderful atmosphere across the school, and we have since seen a huge improvement in our attendance levels. Well done to all the class teachers and SNA’s who helped make this initiative possible.
Ms Hannigan