School attendance

It's just awful. My Y2 child has been vomiting all weekend and is in tears this morning as I want to do the right thing and keep her home (as per school policy). All because of a badge she now won't get in July.

She has otherwise excellent attendance. I'll be writing to the school but have no expectations. Two kids in her class of 30 got this award last year showing it's achievable for fewer than 1:10 with good luck/immunity or parents who send them anyway

The biggest chunk of absence are the parents who don't send their child in, because they think they've got a sniffle, repeatedly and regularly. They're too tired. I heard them cough last night. They wouldn't eat breakfast.

Do the parents actually say "I think they've got a sniffle"
I find it difficult to believe that a large "chunk" of parents are calling in to say their child has a sniffle - I've literally never heard anyone use that phrase in real life at all. It's only ever used by people who think children should be sent to school unless they are vomiting.
Same goes for "I heard them cough last night" - I'm quite sure there aren't swathes of parents using this phrase.
It's also quite unfair to go off what a parent gets to say in a 30 second phone call to school, first thing in the morning, which may or may not get written down in the same way they've said it.
If a parent thinks their child is too unwell to attend school, it's not up to a teacher to decide otherwise.

@Rosme you are right. I absolutely despise attendance rewards (and also prizes for fundraising which I kicked up a fuss about due to how unfair it is for low income families). children should not be rewarded for things that are out of their control. My DS lost all respect for his school (though he was not rude to them) over their silly rules and reward systems. He quite rightly recognised that if you get a stomach bug in October and lose your 100% attendance then you cant get the prize, so in for a penny in for a pound for the rest of the year, take as much time off as possible (he hated school and this system was bizarrely meant to improve his attendance!)

Good post @Globules.

My own child complained to me in year one that there was 'no point' in doing her homework because Dylan never did his.

Dylan was quite clearly neglected. We had a good talk about how people had very different circumstances.

Rather than criticise what the school is doing to improve attendance, perhaps you could suggest other measures?

We moved house in Jan and changed (primary)schools; the old one in London had 86% attendance (which I though was shocking) and the current one has 97%.

What would you do if you were in charge of the 86% school?

Unless you're in school leadership, it's hard to see the complexities of this.

In my old school (primary), I changed our attendance system from individual attendance certificates and prizes to class ones. Having a child with a medical condition, 100% attendance certificates wind me up. The top 3 class attendance winners were put on the newsletter. The top 3 and "better attendance since last week" classes were shared in assembly and all of those classes had 5 minutes extra play on a Friday. Every class had a reward several times throughout the year.

The local authority link person was hard on me, and therefore the school, because I wasn't doing enough to improve attendance, and making it worse in her eyes by getting rid of the 100% individuals. I only created a "top 3" classes as she was threatening to mark our self assessment down as "we weren't working with her, nor actioning her shared expertise"

When you get a whole school overview, you see the patterns. The biggest chunk of absence are the parents who don't send their child in, because they think they've got a sniffle, repeatedly and regularly. They're too tired. I heard them cough last night. They wouldn't eat breakfast. One child was at 60% attendance for these sorts of reasons. Other end of the spectrum are parents who can't be bothered to get their children into school as it's too much effort. Kids stay home bored, and learn the lifestyle to pass onto the next generation.

Families taking 2 or 3 term time holidays a year is another big contender. My current school has siblings off for at least 8 holidays a year, ranging from long weekends to fortnight's away. They've already had 3 holidays since September.

Children with long term diagnosed medical conditions normally have parents desperate to get them into school when they can, as they're aware of how much education they're missing due to all the appointments or days needed at home for treatments/recovery.

Things can be done though for the ones who are persistent absentees. I've recently undertaken research for my Master's, actioned it in my school, and seeing the rewards. Slowly getting there and seeing change with some of our harder to reach families.

@Fantasia99 Keep reminding your son that learning things at school every day is far more important than a new book for the classroom once in a while. And feel free to tell him that other head teachers in our country think his school is running an unfair attendance system because I agree with him!

Of course the stats on term time holidays aren't a surprise. It has always made financial sense. On top of that we've had numerous examples over the last few years of school being a nice to have, something that can stop happening if there's a good enough reason.

As someone who's occasionally withdrawn mine for a day or two, albeit for events rather than holidays, attendance prizes have absolutely no impact on my decision making about my DC. All they do is stigmatise the DC who have lower attendance for reasons that aren't their choice.

@Pooooochi the stats on term time holidays are not a surprise. Fines are not the answer, though there is a difference I think between visiting for a cultural event or an elderly relative, and what I expect most are, sitting in the sun for a week or two.

I'd speak to them. It's an awful policy and stands to stigmatise those DC who have a lot of medical appointments and/or particularly chaotic parents. Primary aged kids are overwhelmingly not in control of whether they attend school or not.

I should have clarified that at primary it's a lot to do with the parents. My DS school has about 110 kids in and as far as I'm aware there's only 3 with chronic conditions, including him. Lots and lots going on term time holidays though

Meh. It’s a stupid system and I don’t agree with it. My 5 year old has poor attendance due to his chest/lung issues- it’s not something he or I can do anything about, and I don’t see why a child should be ‘punished’ for such things. He’s more vulnerable to viruses, if anything I’m preventing him from spreading them to other kids by not sending him in (I work 45+ hrs a week, and I’m a single mum so it really doesn’t benefit me to keep him off).

Primary school children aren’t responsible for their attendance, the parents are. It’s archaic to put that pressure back on the kids!

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The secondary school my child attended that we had issues with, had 180 ish pupils per year. In my children’s year, that we knew of, there were 6 children with chronic health issues, all having a lot of time off which wasn’t the parents fault.

That’s over 3% of the children in the year and there was maybe more I wasn’t aware of. Then there are things like migraines, period issues, mental health issues...again, fuck all to do with it being the fault of the parents if they miss time but which can all be regular problems.

I can't explain how your childs school records absences or classifies it. But I will redact my statement and say 99% of poor attendance is down to parents.

You have no idea of percentages, as you’ve already shown.

What I will say is that when our son was ill, we met many parents with poorly children who were having the same issues as we were, with schools chasing them about attendance. These were children in and out of hospital and/or with long term illnesses. Again, they had provided medical evidence. They received shitty letters and had welfare officers sent to their homes.

I think poor attendance through no fault of anyone’s, just bad fortune in being ill, is not just 1%.

There are many ongoing health issues that a child can be under the care of a GP and it’s as controlled as possible, that may result in more than 11 days off. Migraines, asthma, anxiety, bad periods etc.

When we were discussing with my child’s doctor about the schools awful behaviour in terms of his illness, he said he gets a lot of parents with chronically ill children saying the same. He was disgusted but not surprised.

This is the same for us but I would suggest our families are probably the minority. Fortunately there won't be many chronically ill children (certainly not in our small rural school) but still plenty of parents who take the mick. I think my son's are all down as authorised absences but they're still absences at the end of the day and will pull the average down for the school

Sunny holiday vs the class gets a new book

Unsurprising some people do it tbh

I can't explain how your childs school records absences or classifies it. But I will redact my statement and say 99% of poor attendance is down to parents.

It certainly wasn’t our fault. Our child was too ill to attend as written in medical evidence. Hospital stays, on medication etc, I’d love to know how his poor attendance was our fault. 🙄

If a child does have a significant illness that requires a longer time off, that is recorded differently on the register. It will not affect their attendance records in the same way.

Clearly not in all schools. One of my children had one awful year of attendance at school. Medical evidence provided, school kept informed, everything done right, but it was still recorded in the same way as anything else.

To be considered poor attendance, at least in my school, they need to be absent at least 11 days. That's a significant amount. So significant and unusual that the huge majority of pupils do not fall into this category. If a child does have a significant illness that requires a longer time off, that is recorded differently on the register. It will not affect their attendance records in the same way.

The children who typically fall into the poor attendance category are those who are off for a whole week here and there due to 'tummy bugs' yet come back in with a tan sharing details of their holiday.

Yes this is shit and your DCs teachers will probably agree. I wouldn’t waste your time going in and speaking to the school. Schools are judged on their attendance and unfortunately there is nothing an individual headteacher, school or even local authority can do to change it. It’s a much higher and deeper issue.

Nope, I didn't say that anywhere. I said poor attendance is 100% a parents fault.

But if the child is ill and therefore has poor attendance, how is that the parents ‘fault’? It can’t be helped, no one is at fault.

Nope, I didn't say that anywhere. I said poor attendance is 100% a parents fault.

Cloudofdust a huge proportion of absence is parents opting to pull kids out for term time holidays.

I'd say poor attendance is 100% parents fault at primary level.

You think parents are at fault for their children being unwell?