An attendance meeting at school for 5 days off since September

The obsession with attendance in English schools is ridiculous. I totally agree that if there are a lot of unexplained absences this should be followed up in case there is problem. But insisting that parents attend a meeting where it has been quite clearly explained that absence is due to illness is a waste of everyone's time.

The 48 hour rule could quite easily result in five days of absence over a three month period. Perhaps if schools didn't insist on sick children coming into school there wouldn't be so many others ending up having to take time off.

If they want a meeting then the school will need to arrange it at a convenient time for you.

It’s not schools who are obsessed with attendance. It’s the government. Schools get in trouble if attendance drops/is low. There has only been about 60 days and they’ve missed 5 which is makes them near 90% which is a cause for concern. The school are just being proactive to make sure everything is ok and if they can do anything to support.

I can understand your frustration but... there are parents who do keep their kids off for stupid reasons. There are parents who lie to the school. There are parents who simply cannot say no to their children and will allow them to stay off school if they fancy it. I recently had a parent tell me their child would not be in as it was their birthday.

What do you mean by ‘authorised days off?’
I think that’s quite a lot tbh

you fall below a percentage, if you don't take more days off you will climb back above it soon.

I did contact the school as I thought it was ridiculous this didn't get taken into account but was told by the teacher she thought it would be a nice thing to do because dd would get a treat if she gets her attendance marks for all week.

How patronising and insensitive. I'm sure your daughter would have been happier being in school and her grandfather not dying than getting a 'reward' for being in. How you haven't sent a strongly worded message I don't know.

My daughter is on attendance report. Unfortunately she had a couple of days off with d & v which was neither here nor there. She doesn't have time off willy nilly.

Then her grandad died. First loss she has suffered at the age of 14. She was devastated.

She had 4 days off after he died and a day off for the funeral.

She is now on attendance report.

I did contact the school as I thought it was ridiculous this didn't get taken into account but was told by the teacher she thought it would be a nice thing to do because dd would get a treat if she gets her attendance marks for all week.

Schools are absolutely obsessed. It's ridiculous.

Compulsory school age starts the term AFTER your child has turned 5. So it depends what month your child turned 5. If for example she turned 5 in September, then she is not CSA until January 2024 term, so they cannot do a thing about her attendance. If she turned 5 in August or before, then she will be CSA.

I would personally send an email, stating that you are declining the meeting as the 5 days she has been off have all been authorised for illness and could not be helped.

Schools are wasting time on this obsession with high attendance.

Why they can't differentiate between neglected kids and actually unwell kids is what I want to know.

Bloody waste of everyone's time.

She is only classed as compulsory school age the term after she turns 5, so for example if she was 5 in Nov, then not actually classed as statutory school age until Jan.
Do you know definitely that absences are authorised? if so I'd be inclined to contact them to ask why a discussion is necessary at this point when absences are authorised.
It could just be a supportive, checking in and making sure there is nothing they're missing meeting. Plus absence always looks worse this time of year because it's still only Term 1.
Just be aware that if they start unauthorising the absence, you could receive an Education penalty notice.

So you need to set up a formal meeting and you can't just do this with a simple phonecall and/or use your braincells and exercise discretion when it's fucking obvious a child has been ill and isn't taking the piss?

This is lunatic beaucracy over humanity.

I had this last year, it’s because attendance runs sept to sept so if child is off a lot in first few months it drops really low and then rises over the year.
i declined the meeting and nothing else was said but my sons been off loads recently so expecting another soon as already had an email about low attendance

Not doing exact maths here but if she's been at school for 12ish weeks, that's 60 days so 5/60 (or 1/12), it does sound quite steep. Schools I've worked in have had triggers for under 95% attendance but I think it's probably more likely to be the number of occasions rather than the number of days. My workplace have a policy where managers have to hold an attendance meeting for 3 or more absences in a 12 month period so it doesn't surprise me that schools are doing the same sort of thing.

Can't see the problem with going along to the meeting and explaining why she's been off each time and asking whether they'd rather she was sent in to spread around bugs and make more kids sick... all they're going to do is have a conversation, not like you'll get fined or your kid kicked out of school 🤷‍♀️

This.

I had lots of requests to attend meetings for my ds2 who was always flipping sick with something. I ignored them all. He wasn't in because their policy said he couldn't be in, that's nothing to do with me.

Unfortunately he never managed a full years attendance throughout his whole school life, unlike his brother who was never sick and never missed a day.

Number of days is secondary to incidences of sickness. 4 incidents at this stage in the year is a lot.

were they all Monday or Friday? Will also impact.

Maybe the school has had an attendance problem in the past and this is one of the ways they're trying to deal with it?

sorry I don’t mean to taint with the same brush, just my friends DD had 13 strike days in the last academic year…,

google+school name/LEA will give you the answer.

how are those even comparable? Honestly I despair.

This is so true. It is prob even more than 10% currently given term is still on for few weeks. They need to discuss as if the trend were to continue;

90% attendance = 4 weeks missed per year (classified as persistent absentee-unacceptable. A pupil will find it difficult to catch up on missed learning and will be unlikely to achieve their best)

I think as they get to know you and this horrible season of bugs abates, it shouldn't be a problem. Good luck with the meeting. I wouldn't be combative.

Last year our school sent attendance statistics around weekly for about five weeks. It would say things like year x has been affected by chickenpox / year y by covid / year z by norovirus. The following week you could see how illnesses had moved through the year groups! Illness figures have increased as we have more sickness now with covid added into the mix, yet somehow with no mitigations, attendance is meant to be higher...

They won't really see if there are any safeguarding issues at home by having a meeting with the parents. If they think there are safeguarding issues then they need to contact social services.

5 days off in less than 1 term is a lot.

You could also see it from the school's view. 5 days is nearly 10% of the first term. They may be checking there are no safeguarding issues at home, or any underlying issues. If she is 5, the school don't know her, or you.