To not understand the fixation on attendance?

yanbu it’s ridiculous and discriminatory to children with conditions and disabilities

My kid has ASD and manages best if he can pace social interaction.
When we were HE we would alternate "going out" days with "chill days" at home. (We didn't just chill. He'd do maths and writing. But the crucial thing is he'd not need to deal with people)
He's now going into specialist provision and I'll be keeping a careful eye on how he's coping. If necessary I'll be advocating for a part time timetable.
With DS there is no correlation between attendance and academic progress.
He can attend every day in a state of near dissociation and have all his work differentiated downwards.
Or he can come in less often and do higher order thinking.
So far teachers have preferred the first option but I'm hoping specialist provision will be more understanding.

I agree, my son was diagnosed with type one diabetes and had to take 6 weeks off (and further more days for appointments if you have a type one then you know it's appointments all the time!) I got a letter stating his attendance had dipped below 87 percent and he couldn't have more time off... problem was he nearly died and couldn't of functioned in school at that time.

To much emphasis on attendance than actually checking schools.......

I really don't understand it. We are supportive parents who take our children to school daily. This year, my youngest has had a tummy bug and temperature which required three days off school to abide by regulation. He then got another virus and temperature, so another two days, and had two days off to attend his grandfather's funeral at the other end of the country. I've had two statutory attendance letters to let me know that at those points of the year his attendance was inadequate. we have now had a referral made for an ASD assessment and the referral reports his attendance as poor (at around 95-6%). Apparently he would need to secure over 96% to be adequate and over 98% to be excellent. TBH, it's all made me quite dismissive of the process, and more inclined to take him out for holidays etc - we can't hut target anyway, so why bother.

I've just lodged my 4th complaint with the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman regarding lack of education for my Sen children (2 previously upheld, 2 currently under investigation).

I've also just lodged my 9th Specialist Education Needs and Disability Tribunal appeal. The Gov/Councils only care about attendance when they can parent blame. They don't abide by their own statutory duties to provide education. Hypocrisy at its finest.

I’ve also got a bright asd child. We had a bad time at mainstream but he is now in a fantastic specialist school which is meeting his needs, and his attendance this year is 99%. If he was still at mainstream it would most likely be 0%

My dc all have ‘terrible’ attendance. To me though it’s fine. 2 are home educated as it became clear the school system was making their medical issues worse.

The ones in school- I keep them off if they are unwell, not push them in on medication like the school advise. If they are struggling mentally we have a day to relax and reset (to avoid autistic burnout).

For all of them in reception year we did half days only for the first 2 terms as they still needed a nap to process all that overstimulation and information.

We’ve had meetings, been told to sign contracts to improve it (I declined), had to get drs letters to prove illnesses etc etc.

My dc that are now 18+ did extremely well in GCSEs / A levels. One in full time employment one in PT. I truly believe had I forced them and had 100% attendance as the short term goal they’d be burnt out would not have achieved what they have and not be able to work. I chose to focus on the long term and continue to consider this for my younger dc still in the school system.

@IkeaMeatballGravy

One of my dc managed 4 years of juniors with no time missed, i personally managed the whole of secondary! Not everyone gets ill

I was a school governor, for three primary schools, over a 20 year period. At the beginning of my time, attendance was rarely an issue, at the end very much so! We had parents whose children attended for less than 50% of the time, often citing needing a holiday, deaths in families, emergencies you'd not believe, but these were the same children struggling with the basics. Education is often not seen as important by some parents and it is generally in those whose children need it the most and get the least at home. It gets so you make blanket rules, to stop the arguments and yes, it does and can penalise genuine requests and for students often well beyond their fellow classmates in terms of their education, but you can no longer use discretion because this results in accusations and arguments, legal threats even, so you penalise all! It is rather like the workplace, where an edict is issued, because the management is afraid of addressing the issue with the few, so all have more draconian terms imposed on them to avoid hard conversations and more difficult HR legal threats down the line!

97% isn't the issue, it's the numbers dropping below 90% for no significant reason, not even due to mental health, just aren't made to go to school. Been at the front line and parents don't care about education

Many dc are cut out of education by year 4 at school because they can't read well and they can't engage and they are bored.
We ate draconian in our schooling.

I would be interested in stats if you school refusers or those that hate it. I would be surprised if they are the high achievers

It's so different now to pre covid though.

Pre covid 95% used to be the benchmark for good attendance and this was the measure schools were aiming for. Now it's just not attainable for many schools. Surely you see why this is a problem?

The social contract between parents and schools has been broken and some parents just don't see it as essential that students attend every day unless they are ill. This has a toxic effect on a child's education.

I don’t think anyone is advocating a lack of attendance and I appreciate that in general education enhances your quality of life etc and long term future.

Currently the way attendance issues are being dealt with is counterproductive, discriminatory and unreasonable.

We need to understand if there are cohorts who are not presenting at school and do not have anxiety/EBSA/SEN issues. We need to discern whether there are mental health issues here.

The issue isn’t 97% attendance. Or pupils with health conditions.

The issue is the huge number of pupils who are under 90% or even much lower who get a cold and stay off two weeks, or those who just don’t feel like coming in some days.

Covid has made school feel more ‘optional’ to both parents and pupils. A bit under the weather? Stay home. Tired this morning? Stay home. Weather is shitty? Stay home. Pupils with 80% attendance or less are not uncommon any more. Even 50% is far too common.
Yes there are procedures but they take a long time to progress (years).
It’s one of those things that each individual absence feels like no big deal but when you’re heading towards exams and you’ve missed the equivalent of 1 day per week all year it has a huge impact.

I also agree, it's frustrating to see nonsense trotted out when it's not addressing real issues so we know nothing will change.

Same old same old again.

I'd also add that supporting dc with sen is not just a funding issue. Some dc just need very light extra support and understanding from a teacher. But they can't get that because teachers don't know.

Attendance is important especially in deprived areas.

I worked in a school in the bottom 20% for deprivation and it’s so important. The head teacher used to drive round and pick children up to come to school otherwise they simply wouldn’t. It was so sad to see.

School/ formal qualifications aren't that important to many people. There are entry routes to most jobs that don't require decent GCSE grades ( my organisation no longer asks for any qualifications) and if you're desparate to get into 50 grand of debt, you can do an access course for Uni when you're over 21. Why waste your childhood worrying about fronted adverbials or sitting in isolation because your socks are the wrong colour?

My DS is a very bright child with ASD who is being totally and utterly failed by his school. They talk the talk and then do fuck all to support him, other than fuck about round the edges, not providing substantive help (e.g. the Ed Psych says he needs a named person as the person he can talk to when he needs help / is feeling anxious, not a 1-2-1, just a named person. They've not even done that).

Then they bitch at us about his attendance.

I agree with you totally. Experiences, time with family etc are far more beneficial for children. People don't want to hear this though for some reason.

If parents don’t want to abide by attendance rules, that’s entirely up to them. But don’t then bitch when your child falls behind in their core learning and blame the school and teachers! My OH teacher sees it time and time again. Schools have to stick to the curriculum and the timeline of teaching it, they cannot go back and fill in the gaps every time a parent can’t be bothered to send their kid in or decides to take a cheeky week in Greece in the middle of the school year. Yet these parents are the ones always bleating at parents’ evening when they’re told their child has fallen behind. 🤷‍♀️

I genuinely think the schools insistence on being so draconian in their outlook is why so many kids become school refusers.

the whole thing of “you can’t take your blazer off even though it’s 32 degrees” or you’ll be put into isolation if you stare out of a window…. For kids with ADHD it must be utterly unbearable having to be a square peg stuck into a round hole for 8hrs of the day. The workforce isn’t like that so what are those schools trying to achieve?

relax the pettiness and make kids WANT to go school might be a good place to start…

I was with you until
I also think it would be such a crowd pleaser to allow 5 days authorised holidays at the discretion of the headteacher…. And yes, I’d also be in favour of my child’s teacher being able to go to a family wedding or see their child on sports day or (God forbid) have a day out with their spouse a few times a year
Definitely no, I wouldn’t be impressed if my kids were left without a teacher because they fancied a day out with their spouse. Same for term time holidays, you do realise that if you say it is fine to take a week some people will take more. And then the children will need to catch up, taking from the learning time meant for the other 29 kids in the classroom. Sorry but this is really a silly idea.

Parents who cannot be bothered need to be pushed to act, and a focus on attendance helps to ensure that to some degree. It's also an important lesson for life in general.

The taking out of school for holidays needs to be tackled by something other than fines, as said they are usually just a typical beach or similar holiday.

I've just not seen any decent ways of increasing attendance in the complex groups. It's all fines and red letters rather than looking at the causes and trying to sort it out.

I've also seen schools decide to improve their stats by tackling the people at the threshold of persistant absence (so around 92%) as its easier to tackle those, over supporting those with very complex reasons who are down on 60%. so the schools overall stats look better, but there is still some poor sausage really missing out in a very meaningful way.

Attendance is a massive issue and needs tackling but the problem isn’t the kids who have medical issues and they shouldn’t be penalised for it. Attendance certificates miss the mark.
Some children are kept off school for long or regular periods for no reason. The whole system does need looking at to meet children’s needs more effectively.