To not understand the fixation on attendance?

This is wrong. She should be marked as late. If she is marked as absent then she isn’t in school. How do they then secure her welfare if there is a fire or something when officially she isn’t there.

The whole attendance thing has gone too far.

You get treated like dirt if your child's attendance is low no matter the reason. My GP has told me to ignore them, the SEN department at the LA has told me to ignore them and the school nurse has too. But it's not so easy when you're in a meeting where 5 of them are ganging up on you because your child dared to be autistic and get Long COVID!

I wouldn’t be confident that schools could act as effectively as me in this situation. Being in loco parentis for thirty students doesn’t always work as effectively as a parent looking after their child. If your child has had a GA, it might be due diligence to look after them yourself.

Because parents who are disengaged don’t shell out £25k for private school, private school kids don’t tend to get involved in county lines, and lastly, many private schools will boot out anyone who isn’t meeting expectations in some way (including SEN - my friend’s daughter was kicked out of her private primary when she received her autism diagnosis).

Medical advise was to be off a week until seen in clinic and then we were advised further.
We followed the medical advise from the specialist who did the surgery and knew the situation.

My child went in to school the day after a GA. The hospital said lots of children are fine use your judgement. And i suspect theres a proportion of parents that just keep their child off the next day because they can, rather than because they definitely think their child is in no fit state. The school will have almost certainly had other children come in the day after a GA, so will naturally think yours might be ok to as well.

I find it frustrating that the British education system tends to enforce strict, authoritarian rules that punish all parents, regardless of individual circumstances. Even parents dealing with genuine issues such as a child's illness, family emergencies, or the need for a holiday are reprimanded. I even know of a case where a parent received a lecture from the school after their child was hospitalized following a car accident. It seems that there is a lack of empathy and flexibility in such cases.

Furthermore, I am concerned about the outdated nature of certain subjects in the education system, particularly music. Instead of focusing on modern music production tools like Pro Tools or Ableton, students are still being taught traditional notation and old-fashioned instruments. This seems out of touch with the current trends and technologies in the music industry.

Overall, it appears that the education system is in need of a major overhaul. Unfortunately, many public bodies, including those in government, seem to lack the necessary imagination and innovation to bring about these much-needed changes.

You would assume that if it was a genuine error they would keep insisting the child comes in less than 24 hrs after a GA with the reasoning being they can sit quiet and be observed by school just as well as at home

No I don't have some reason.

School staff are human too. They may have been working through a list of names without context. They may have written or recorded the date of the operation incorrectly. They may have some parents who lie about their children having operations and medical appointments. They may be cruel and malicious and called with the intention of upsetting a lovely, genuine parent. I'm afraid I don't know.

But please do remember that school staff are also parents. We also have children with SEND and medical needs. We also get these letters and phone calls. I think we don't ascribe unpleasant intent to them but we do get them.

If she is on the spectrum you should agree a plan with the school - she shouldn’t be marked absent - agree registration with school office. My teen had an autistic meltdown and off school on advice of CAMHS. We agreed a reduced timetable- arrives late/ leaves early, misses non essential classes/self study etc.

I wouldn’t accept a late start being marked down as absent- could have implications for you legally if LA wanted to be arsey- but key thing is you need an agreed plan with school to support your child’s educational and emotional needs.

Yes, and it won't do to say these are bad schools, poor practice etc. Yes, we know. That's immaterial. It happens, it happens as a consequence of the system we have and it's a problem.

@lemonmeringueno3

Calling me up to get my child into school the morning after a known GA is not an acceptable blanket policy.

I'm sure you will have some reason why this was a measured response
But the bottom line is we are real people not data
And at the end of that data is a child who has unmet needs that are being ignored while it's easier to send out letters to a family

I'm sure she will have looked at it all before making any decision, she will have looked at it from the aspect of the underprivileged (a category she grew up in) through to the ones who are in an optimal environment to thrive. You could always send her your suggestions?

"Not causing the other children and staff problems by kicking off at school does not equate being fine in school. It just means child isn't causing problems so being years behind their class (at reception level in year 5 for example) doesn't equate to child needing support. "

A child that is 5 years behind peers should definitely have support and would at every school I've worked at. It might not be as many hours as the parent wants, particularly if support has been monitored over a period and has had little impact, but certainly some support yes I agree.

"But we are the families being targeted. Countless examples on here. "

I think mn is just more likely to be caring mothers who perceive the letter as unfair because their child was genuinely ill. In rl those families are a minority % of letter recipients in any school.

"Parents of unwell children should not be targeted especially as those in genuine needs are ignored because we are the soft target."

You are not targeted. It is a blanket policy so that people do not feel judgment, shame or stigma. Everyone gets the same treatment. You might be more likely to respond by calling us than the family still high from the night before, but that's not the same as targeted.

The parents of 'quick wins' are being targeted as schools know they can improve their overall stats more easily by focussing on low hanging fruits. They report on attendance as a whole school figure.

It's much easier to get a parent who is on the cusp of persistant absence to modify their behaviour, than one whose child is at 60% attendance.

You can persaude them not to have a term time holiday, far more easily than persaude an autistic chikd in the totally wrong environment that school is safe.

It's also much easier to persaude a child with a cold to come in, than get a child from a chaotic home in.

"But carry on thinking you're doing a Stella job ignoring these kids needs."

There's no need to be an arse. I've spent a lot of time on this thread trying to be helpful and explain the school's pov. Not to defend, but to explain. No teacher thinks they're doing a stellar job supporting SEND. We know the limitations. Many of us have children with SEND ourselves and understand the frustration.

But we are the families being targeted. Countless examples on here.
If I have surgery with GA my employer wouldn't expect me in school the next morning. I had a head on the phone telling me my child being off school was unacceptable as they could look after the child the same as me.
This was the following morning from surgery even if this had been a minor Surgery (tooth extraction for example) but done under GA this isn't acceptable and goes against medical advise.

A child who has medical appointments frequently for health issues and spends time in hospital for these issues is not the same as a child who is missing because they want to be hidden
It is not the same at all.
Parents of unwell children should not be targeted especially as those in genuine needs are ignored because we are the soft target

We paid privately for ed psych.
Report said support is needed didn't make a difference to what offered.

Not causing the other children and staff problems by kicking off at school does not equate being fine in school. It just means child isn't causing problems so being years behind their class (at reception level in year 5 for example) doesn't equate to child needing support.
The system is messed up. And the families and the child is paying the price.

It's easier to blame us than do what needs to be done. My child sitting in year 5 lessons doesn't do them any good when they would struggle to do the work in reception class. All this achieves is destroying their esteem and mental health.
This gets worse when there in year 8 and still can't add 2 +2

But carry on thinking your doing a Stella job ignoring these kids needs

And nothing to do with what a person said that if you don't attend school you will call in work sick.

Yep separate things

Unfortunately, poor attendance is not only statistically correlated with poor outcomes, it is a causative factor.

You can look at two schools with similar demographics and the one which really emphasises attendance gets better results.

Yes, you cannot drill this down to every pupil. Parents who are both teachers taking their child in term time to Florence for an educational holiday and making them catch up on all their other subjects clearly won’t cause the pupil to suffer academically.

But the government and schools can’t have one policy for the educated middle classes and one for the ‘unwashed proles’ (as a PP effectively suggested in more polite and floral language), although they kind of do via private schools (which nearly always authorise absence).

Realistically, if you do want your child to have additional absence and have a good reason, just pay the relatively small fine. Many do this for in-term holidays and still save a ton of money. As long as you don’t throw the onus for your child to catch up back on to the school, I don’t think it is a real problem.

I know mn is determined to think that mean schools are stressing out parents for fun, when their children are genuinely ill.

But I think it's obvious that the families being targeted by school, local authority and government campaigns are not those genuine cases.

They are the ones who allow their child to have days off on request, or for very minor reasons, or take many term time holidays each year, or have every Monday off because that's mums day off and she wants a lie in, or have every rainy day off because it's a ten minute walk and they don't like getting wet.

And also the ones who have a day off because they don't have a reliable washing machine, or there's domestic abuse, or there are addictions, or there are transport difficulties, or their employer has changed their working hours.

Sometimes we can help and sometimes we need to explain the benefits of being in school. The approach is obviously different depending on the reason.

Just because you only talk to nice mummies with poorly children who are sad about getting an irrelevant letter doesn't mean that all of those other families don't exist.

We don't really care about someone who has had chicken pox and a sickness bug in the same term. We don't expect sick children to come into school. We don't enjoy upsetting parents. We send a blanket letter to avoid any allegations of judgment or unfairness.