Epilepsy "attendance letter"

[xlittlekellyx]

Hi please could you advise what you would do......
On friday my daughter had been given a letter at school and she came home and opened it (although it did say to the parent) inside was a red attendance letter saying my daughter has had too much time off school and her attendance is 84% so she is in the red category...my daughter loves school with a passion and only has time off due to her epilepsy...she bacame very stressed about this letter and i was worried as she gets fits due to stress and photosentivity...do you think i have a right to complain or just let it go? Thank you x

[harrygracejessica]

I would go and speak to them.

[xlittlekellyx]

Thank you..am i just being oversensitive do you think?

[Handywoman]

tbh little this is little more than admin on school's part, as attendance rates attract interest from OFSTED. The letter was addressed to you and therefore if you raise this with them I doubt school will pay much mind. And I can see why. I would file the letter under 'bin' and not give it further thought. Then hopefully your daughter will take your lead and forget about it too.

Handywoman xx

[newlife4us]

We had a similar situation before we moved areas a couple of years ago. My daughter had very brittle and difficult to control epilepsy and was experiencing between 5 and 30 absence seizures per day, tonic seizures at night and had other health issues. We were living in an area without an epilepsy nurse. I was getting my daughter to school as often as possible but even on the days that she was sent in I would generally get a call from the school mid-morning.

The head spoke to me and said that if the school absence inspector visited I would be questioned. Apparently I should have been calling the school nurse aswell as the school to advise of her absence, which hadn't previously been communicated to me. I passed all hospital notes to the school SENCo and thought little more about it.

A while after we had moved her new school said that an educational welfare officer from the previous area had called to check on her attendance at the new school.

Obviously your child has epilepsy and has time off legitimately for this. I would, however, discuss this with your school nurse and epilepsy nurse (if you have one) in addition to speaking to the school.

[xlittlekellyx]

Thank you very much..i will definitely talk to the school nurse and i will definitely bin the letter x thank you for your asvice x