To not understand the fixation on attendance?

Our council website states fines are only for unauthorised absence.

https://educationhub.blog.gov.uk/2024/02/29/fines-for-parents-for-taking-children-out-of-school-what-you-need-to-know/
This govt article states 89% of fines for unauthorised absence are for term time holidays.
I know people are determined that the issue is chronically ill children beng fined for being sick - can you provide some evidence that a high percentage of absence is authorised, and due to illness?

I do agree however that for these children there should be better support to catch up learning that has been missed due for reasons they can do nothing about. I just think that actually this is a tiny tiny minority.

My DS is on amber for attendance due to being in hospital earlier this year. Short of disconnecting his drip and probably putting him in a wheelchair back to school I couldn't have done anything, it is out of my control. They'll probably be given time off for watching football in the next week or so which is a total pisstake after banging on about minutes matter all year.

Authorised absence still triggers attendance letters and fines

Of course it relevent. My child missing due to medical appointments still misses the learning that day. It's not some magical loop hole that the child magically absorbs that knowledge.
We still get attendance warning letters.

What we don't get is any support to make up list learning or any understanding that child is struggling. We just get told to have them in more.

As if we can just wave a wand and solve all the medical issues. Or make the hospital move closer, appointment out of term.time etc

A medical appointment, with associated letter, does not go down as an unauthorised absence. I know a couple of chronically unwell children whose schools absolutely are not pressuring them over absences due to repeat medical appointments.
I think we all know that's not the issue. The issue is the parent who keeps their child off school the whole day, for a 1hr medical appointment. And the parents keeping their kids off on a fri regularly, because it's their day off, and just generally having a poor attitude to school attendance.
You can have 95% attendance and thats seen as acceptable - you can miss 9 full days of school and still have 95% attendance. 9 full days is an awful lot. Normal healthy children who dont have a chronic condition are not generally SO unwell they cant get to school for 9 days every year.

@Laundryliar

The issue is some children miss over 20.days a year just with hospital appointments.
Nothing is done to support these families and the children missing learning isn't supported.

Totally out of families hands and stressing them and making them feel guilty about lost learning while doing nothing to address this missed learning.
So either the missed learning matters and support should be put in place for the children with medical needs that miss through no fault.of their own or it doesn't matter and this is just a control tactic

I think people don't quite realise how bad the attendance issue is. Its not a few kids, missing a few days. Its nearly 20% of all school kids, missing 10% or MORE of the school days. 10% isn't just a handful of sick days.... Its nearly 20 days a year?! Imagine how much a child learns in 20 full school days. Thats probably over 100 hours of learning missed, and that's 1 in 5 children. And people think there isn't really an issue 🤔

Source: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/pupil-absence-in-schools-in-england

This is spot on.

There are loads of kids who miss too much school and there are a myriad of reasons for it.

My DD had one day off sick early in the first term of this year and I guess because it was so early in the year the percentage of time out was artificially high. She has an average of 2 days off per academic year usually. So the school wasted their admin time sending me a snotty auto filled email asking me to buck up my ideas, which I then wasted my time responding to in v patronising tones. Whereas there are families whose children don't attend for vast swathes of times. Surely the interventions should be targeted and focused on these families?

Oh bigger pressed send

Lack of understanding as to why the struggle to attend and the anxiety it causes. We need to have schools given a rounded and relevant education to start and then build from there.

It's a bigger issue. Attendance does impact grades, that is a fact. Schools are judged on grades. Get rid of that grading and attendance becomes less of an issue.

The whole system needs an overhaul. I currently work with SEND/SEMH students and there is a lack of understanding as to why they can

Attendance IS important. Attendance for attendance sake, is not.

Attendance should be a metric used to assess effectiveness of the school in terms of support for children, engagement of the wider family etc - ie 95% attendance school wide is a sign that things are going well, families are supportive of the school and vice versa etc and lower attendance is a sign that perhaps there are problems or gaps. Instead, it's become a goal in itself.

The result is that attendance becomes the fault of the families rather than the school taking responsibility and thinking, "what can we do to get these children back into school".

The reality is that a lot of chidlren are not attending school because their needs aren't being met. Others are not attending school because their families don't see the value. Others because they can't meet the standards the school has set - from uniform to timings to homework etc. There are wider issues at both the school and societal level if we want to solve for this problem.

For example, I know a woman who took her child out of school for the last two weeks of a term once... because she couldn't afford to buy him new school shoes and she didn't want to buy them at the end of the summer term anyway if his feet were going to grow but he kept getting detention for not having the right shoes. So she just stopped making him go.

Wow you sound perfect. If you really do this. How does this get financed? Where does the money come from to enable this.

Often we as parents are asked what we want and in general we don't know the answer so we suggest things that may or may not work.

What is your answer?

In my mind it fails because the system doesn't work and the sticking plasters are a short term fix but nothing really.changes

"I think that if you actually spent time trying to understand the families you would discover that families are at breaking point because the school system is not supporting the child's needs and in many cases damaging the child mental health."

I always ask the parents exactly what they want and deliver it.

The following week, it has failed and the child needs something else.

The following week, the new plan fails and the child needs something else.

I have found this to be a good way to keep the parents on side, as they realise that it is not 'school' but more complex than that.

We could give them their own classroom, a 1:1 adult and allow them to follow their interests - but it would still fail because it is not home.

School is the first to go but later the child will move on to rejecting hobbies, then friends, then their own family in favour of their bedroom.

It is more complicated than 'school is boring' or 'school don't meet his needs'.

Yes there maybe a small number of parents who do this but the current system doesn't support families regardless of reason.

So the fine and blame parents does nothing to support families like mine

The families where the parent is hungover or can't be bothered the system doesn't help those children either as the fine threat doesn't get the children in either.

But what the fine and blame system does is target families like mine who can't do anything about it.

The families where parents are too hungover to get child to school are more complex and need more specific support and so it's easier to target us

Neither situation actually gets any targeted support.

So the question is what can change to support these 2 unique situations?

I’m sorry, I should have been clearer. I have, over a career in teaching, taught many children who have struggled with attendance - for cultural, medical, family, housing etc etc reasons.

These children still exist, in every class, and I have been enormously frustrated over recent years at the appalling erosion of the services that should be helping, the extreme waiting lists, the disappearance of support services. The help that I and the school can give is a drop in the ocean in the face of the need, and I have every sympathy for the parents battling the system.

However, there are also families - in hugely increasing numbers post pandemic - who really do keep children home for much smaller reasons, including screen-related ones (tired after gaming all night; parent unable to remove the device from the child etc.

I am sorry if your school is failing to distinguish between the two, and I am sorry that I wasn’t clear in my original post that these are additional absentees, on top of those who would always have been absent through ill health or who have joined the list of absentees due to lack of SEN and health services and support.

Can you really not imagine that there are parents who are different from you and actually don't care whether their kids are attending school regularly? Not every parent values education, as some posters on this thread have even admitted.

You have your own, valid experience of having a child who is unable to attend school regularly for health-related reasons. Teachers and schools have numerous experiences with multiple different children and families, some of whom will be different to yours.

I really don't believe this. I imagine this is the view school have about us.
We get the just make them come in, don't allow them nice time at home comments from school.

I think that if you actually spent time trying to understand the families you would discover that families are at breaking point because the school system is not supporting the child's needs and in many cases damaging the child mental health

Putting heads in.the sand and slamming parents isn't improving the situation and things are getting worse not better with blaming and finding parents

The difficulty with that is responsible parents who do this will ensure their children do some work while away and ensure that their children catch up in order not to disrupt the rest of the class. If anyone did this there would not be a problem. But many would not so their child will turn back up a week later and be behind. The teacher would then have to explain it all again, slowing down and frustrating the rest of the class. If all 30 kids did it that is a child a week on average.

I think it’s a good thing to focus on attendance, as I would think that’s the one thing that disadvantages children’s learning. I know from experience that some parents will keep their child off for a sniffle or a bit of a stomach ache. And that then goes with them into adulthood where they then apply the same level of absence when working. Although obviously children with long ongoing issues diagnosed medically, should be given a bit of leeway.

Utter tosh.
My child tells the school what they think the school wants to hear and to get school to back off.
I would.give my right arm to have a child that is physically and mentally healthy and able to attend school.
Having a child who can not attend school is awful, having a school who don't understand is distressing and stressful.

I don't think anyone encourages their child to be off because even if they wanted more time with their child the hassle you get from school wouldn't be worth the trade off.

I would prefer not having to deal with my child 24/7 too

"I personally think the rhetoric that kids need days off for their mental health, is not in their best interests"

I agree. I have seen it lots of times. As soon as the child realises school is his choice and optional, you've lost. Better to learn strategies to cope at school, strategies to decompress at home afterwards, and resilience.

I have heard lots of parents say things like 'he's promised me he'll be fine from Tuesday if he can just have Monday off' or 'she just needs a week to recover and then we'll be back'. It never works out as expected.

Unfortunately, while you might want to think this doesn’t happen, it is all too common. Pre-pandemic it would have been very unusual. Now it’s common to be a feature in low attendance of a couple of children per (primary) class.

I don’t agree with the holiday breaks or days off just for a trip out but I do agree there needs to be some slack given to those with genuine problems which there is not.

My son has a list of health issues as long as my arm, he’s under a consultant paediatrician, a cardiologist, he’s been seen by a neurologist he's currently also awaiting dermatology referral for recent issues. Much of his time off has been hospital appointments for heart scans, eegs, ecgs, follow ups. He’s passed out on the way to school and even passed out and had a seizure in school. I have kept his head of year updated in detail every step of the way. He’s had 2 A&E hospital admissions, one resulting in surgery for unrelated issues. When he's off he isn’t off because he can’t be arsed or because he has a slight headache or anything he’s off because he’s genuinely unwell and struggling. You can be damn sure with all these issues that if he has a cold I won’t just be ‘giving him a paracetamol and making him go anyway’ as I’ve been told I need to as the likelihood is he may not make it there!

I received an attendance letter, head of year told me its standard practice and is automated to weed out those taking the mick and it wouldn’t go further because they are aware of his health issues and that its genuine. Last week I was dragged in for a meeting with the Attendance Officer, I took proof if all his diagnoses, medical appointments, test results etc to prove his absence is for serious issues and we’ve been told that what the HofY told us about follow up was basically not true and despite the fact its clear there is a lot going on health wise that he can now not take anytime off without a medical certificate, if he’s not ill enough to see a Dr and get a note he can’t be off! Anytime off ill without a note will be classed as unauthorised, two of these and its £160 fine! They have told my son that even if you feel unwell in the morning you often feel better once you get going so he needs to take paracetamol and get his arse in regardless because he’ll probably be ok by 11 and if he doesn’t they have told him I’ll get a fine for not meeting my legal duty. Its a fucking pisstake. Looks like I’ll be getting fined in the not too distant future! Not sure how the fine will improve his health mind.

"In what world do you imagine us parents are encouraging our children to be off school playing on screens.

Get real there is no world that parents do this. What actual benefit would there be to do this? "

You are being a bit naive if you don't think there are parents who let the child decide whether to go to school or not, or phone in sick every time it rains because it's a long walk, or phone in sick every Monday because it's mum's day off work and she wants a lie in, or cba arguing the toss with a child who doesn't want to leave mid-game. The children do tell us stuff too you know.