School coming to home to view sick child - Normal?

@TheOrigRights

I meant BEFORE she was home educated.

When she was still at school.

I've just had exactly the same thing for my 4 year old who has diahorrea. She was only off yesterday and then again today. Apparently its school policy after 48 hours to check child's welfare and to see when they are back at school. She's only had 2 days off before for sickness on 2 seperate occasions and also isn't even legally required to be in school so I'm really mad about it!

In my local area, one of the schools has recently implemented a similar policy where they do a home check if absent for more than 2 days, which I personally think is a bit over the top and must surely cost the school a fortune to manage. I wondered if this was down to the pressure now being placed on schools to improve attendance post covid.

So many young girls and boys are not safe at school due to the abundance of weird toilet rules (especially the unisex ones!).
Parents can't do anything about it. We don't have a say.

And yet the school are allowed to rock up at our doors unannounced.

I would be OK with the latter if the former was sorted out.

It feels like schools are picking and choosing when they want kids to be safe.

I’m amazed they have the staff to do that especially during chicken pox fever. I have once forgotten to tell nursery that we weren’t coming in and had the call to check where we were. That is sensible and has probably saved lives. A colleague at my husband’s work had a heart attack during the morning before taking his child to work. He sadly died but the nursery protocol meant help did arrive and a small child wasn’t left alone all day in traumatic circs.

I’m not entirely sure why dragging a sick child from his bed for a home visit is entirely helpful when they school have already had eyes on the parents dropping off the other child and the child has good attendance normally. It obviously happens in some schools and not others so would be interested to know what best practice actually is.

Maybe I'm misunderstanding you. Why do you think an attendance officer would be called upon to check on the attendance of a home educated child? That child would not be on school roll.

I don't think mini busses are cruising the streets looking for healthy-looking children and taking them to schools aka the Child Catcher.

Sorry but I think that is dreadful.

That’s rather odd imo.

I’ve raised four and this has never happened

They're not there to judge the child's illness fgs they're there to ensure that the child is safe! Of course they are and should be qualified to do this!

Had I telephoned the school to let them know my DC chicken pox and would be absent for up to a week, I'd have been incandescent if they had forced such a visit on a non mutually arranged basis and without a reason.

I would definitely have written outlining my concerns to the HT and the Chair of Governors. The concerns being that my veracity was being questioned and the school was passive aggressively asserting their may be a safeguarding issue in the absence of an explanation.

It seems schools must nowadays be significantly over-resourced and it is therefore surprising that we constantly the teachers are overworked.

This is definitely a new thing. I had 2 of my children off for a week a couple of months ago as they had a really nasty bug. The school called to speak to both of them after 4 days and informed me that if I hadn't let them speak, they would have to visit. I was a little surprised as I had never had this before. They are secondary school age.

But in this case OP has not died. School knew this as she made contact with them.

I used to think this was overbearing behaviour, but then I head of a case where a single mother had died suddenly, and her toddler also passed away from dehydration because no one noticed their absence and checked on them. So now I think communities noticing if people are there or not, and someone taking the time to check if they are not, is not such a bad thing.

Grandchildren school have thrown in the towel I suspect at primary level. After two years of lockdowns every bug childhood disease has ripped through school like a forest 🔥 . Especially the younger ones. When it snowed some bunked off nothing said. Parents are taking term time off for holidays. It may revert come September of course

@TheOrigRights

Juts to clarify when I talked about my DD and the bus I meant before I took her out of school. I thought that was obvious.

Don't feel bad OP, this should not become normal procedure. It's intrusive and a waste of a staff member's time. I would be so cross if a teacher turned up unannounced and demanded my sick child get out of bed.

I wonder if policies like this are part of the reason why so many more families are choosing to home educate. British schools are so controlling and seem to act against parents. Our school has started policing lunch boxes when school meals consist of chips, burgers and cake!

Why not? Children that were deemed 'perfectly able to attend' were taken on the bus. Mine absolutely would have appeared 'perfectly able to attend' so therefore taken on the bus.

Or not because it's crap.

If the school policy is known, then the child and the parent would know this might be a possibility and the parents would advise the child on how to manage the situation. If a child is home alone they should be able to do this.

This happened to my neighbour, they finally explained it was due to persistent lateness which is a safeguarding concern.

She didn’t realise she was so late for school everyday. They start at 8.50am and she would have her children there at 8.50, sometimes 08.55am. They explained that the children need to be sitting in there seats and settled by 8:50am so it is considered late to arrive at that time.

Maybe could be something like this?

Depending how long the child has been off it's to check the child is okay. How do the school know one if the parents havnt lost their temper and harmed the child? It's a safeguarding thing and I dont see anything wrong with it,

That sounds unusual I've never had that happen. Maybe past experience with other children might be the reason. If you have nothing to hide why worry. But if the school being so observant saves one child from an abusive or neglectful homelife I don't see what the issue is.

NO ONE is saying that a mini bus is driving around rounding up home educated children!

As it happens I took one of them out and home ed her because school was not meeting her needs. On the outside she was 'perfectly able to attend' - internally she was breaking down slowly.

I very, very much doubt a mini bus would turn up and round up this child to go to school. I think you're getting ahead of yourself a bit.

Do you have any social work involvement or other safeguarding concerns?

This can be known as an 'eyes on the child check' where if a there are already concerns for welfare of a child and they haven't been seen by a professional in a while, they check-in to make sure child is okay and not a risk.

This would be very unusual if there were not any other concerns about the child or family.

Secondary age could very well be home poorly alone. Mum goes to work tells child not to open door to anyone. Adult turns up saying there are from school puts child in a horrible position.