To not understand the fixation on attendance?

There is a big statistical link between a schools attendance and it’s results.

Of course, correlation isn’t causation but children who regularly miss school do do worse, so it is a sensible school-wide target.

If you are a caring and involved parent who knows your own child, you may know that it is fine for them to take the odd day out and that they (maybe with help from you) will catch up. Or that a sports tournament or even cultural holiday in term time may be of more benefit to your child.

However, the school can’t manage this in a bespoke way, so I think you have to accept the odd ‘telling off’ or small fine in the interests of everyone else. And, as for 100% attendance certificates, of course they aren’t fair but they are as fair as most prizes, in the sense that loads of people have no chance of achieving them. I don’t think most parents or pupils care about them anyway.

Quite.

I know an absolute ton of parents who absolutely do believe (or did believe) in state education until they had a child who did not fit the mould for whatever reason. Suddenly you have to become "that parent" as you realise you are not going to get any real help from school or the local authority without a fight, or spending your own resources on it. And that you may well be blamed and scapegoated and indeed fined, for the issues created by the school.

I agree, most school staff do want school to be a positive experience. But the curriculum and school system are not set up in a way that it can be for all kids.
Clearly badgering parents about attendance doesn't work, so why keep banging the same drum? Because there aren't the resources to do anything else.

Yep, this is part of the problem. Fundamental refusal to accept that having to physically be present in the school environment is the problem for some DC. The broad correlation between low attendance and other problems is used as a juggernaut. And lots of parents simply aren't fooled by such a broad brush approach.

I also think it would be such a crowd pleaser to allow 5 days authorised holidays at the discretion of the headteacher

It's the disruption of 25~+ kids in a class each taking a different 5 random days off. Unless you're also going to completely change the accountability that teaching staff have for planning, delivery and achievement of lessons it's would just be a selfish vanity sop towards indulgent parents.

Rather snobbish and unimaginative.

If it's a choice between a family holiday during term time and no family holiday at all, then 5 days off in terms time is going to be more beneficial than 5 days school. Obviously as long as not in an exam year.

Lots of kids barely go outside their local town so a week abroad will be educational even if it's poolside in Lanzarote.

5 days off for a child that otherwise attends well and has good parental involvement is not an issue.

The problem is lack of support for certain children and families.

A dead child can reach any future.
Some of us a bit prioritising exam results because a child exams are irrelevant if they kills themselves due to mental health damage caused by school

"Nowadays they do so much at a younger age, but do it for a week and move on to the next thing with half the class still being clueless. "

It'll be revisited each year. But the kid who missed it last year will struggle when she meets it again, with gaps in her knowledge.

Interesting that pp are saying it was better in the glorious olden days. Which decade was that?

That's lovely for the academic kids, by all means concentrate on GCSEs, college and Uni.

But the kids who struggle academically don't have a route anymore.

Putting so much emphasis on grades gained at 16 and implying that this is the only way to succeed in life, and without it they are fucked is damaging. There are many opportunities to gain qualifications and skills after school.

The issue is that lots of children with SEN aren't getting the support because budgets are tight.

My child started high school barely coping with year one level work but doesn't meet the requirements that they need support. This means they are expected to cope at year 7 level work without support when they are years and years behind. Of course they don't want to go to school. Everything is beyond their ability and they have no hope of ever catching up in a system that expects them to run a marathon while they are still crawling.
If they had the support they needed at primary level maybe they would be closer to coping now.
We raised issues before they even started primary and have been ignored

Be interesting to see that split by reason. We used to do a dozen+ consultant appointments a year, at a hospital an hour away. Depending on time, it often wasn't worth going in or coming back. His attendance was unacceptable by the end of the year. His learning wasn't impacted and we frankly didn't have much choice.

He had six months of chest and throat infections where we kept him in as much as possible but he ended up with three days in hospital. Plus he's had two days surgeries. His attendance is unlikely to meet the required standards again but school are happy he's at expected level and again, what choice did we have?

I don't think medical appointments with letters should count on attendance, nor hospitalisations.

Well said

Most staff want school to be a positive experience.

But we've all had to sit through a boring lesson, or been told off for breaking a rule that makes school nicer for everyone, or just generally wished we could be at home in bed or gaming or whatever.

We cant solve everything for obvious reasons, and there's always been truancy. But now it's an epidemic and supported by parents.

If you're all insulted because your child is genuinely ill - nobody is addressing any of this at you.

But see the posts from pp saying school and qualifications are no longer important.

I can only speak for my own kid. But "being supported in school" is not as useful to him as being able to take a break from the school environment.

I've seen their "support" for his attention difficulties for example. They sit him with an egg timer and let him have a break when the timer runs out.
Then they bring him in for meetings and make him sign contracts to try and work for 15 mins rather than 10. He gets stressed and confused about why the rules are changing and why his best efforts aren't enough.

They are trying to manage his behaviour when he's in a state of overwhelm. And they tell me he's "improving" if they force his attention onto something for a few minutes more than they did the day before.

At home he voluntarily reads for hours at a time and can do maths several years ahead of his age.

That's why I pulled him out of school. And I pulled him out of an academic support club that tried the same thing.

If his new special school does similar, he won't be staying there either.

in one week you can miss a whole unit of maths.

Therein lies some of the issue. The curriculum is overloaded.

I recall doing the same stuff a number of times at school back in the 70s, to drive it home. Plus we didn't do things like 3D shapes and volume until we were a lot older. The primary years were ramming home the basics, rinse and repeat. We maybe learnt a narrower range, but we knew it.

Nowadays they do so much at a younger age, but do it for a week and move on to the next thing with half the class still being clueless.

The problem with that is that a lot of kids end up thinking they are crap at stuff because they are learning stuff too soon, before the scaffolding of the basics is in place.

It shouldn't be like that.

For those saying it’s not the parents of genuinely ill dc that are the focus we were treated like absolute liars by our previous school - told to send a picture of the antibiotic bottle to prove one dc had an infection, told to bring dc into school when they had a high fever as they wanted to take it themselves to double check, another occasion telling me I had to take Ds in so they could assess if he was too ill for school - we refused this . We then had to provide drs letters which meaning dc to the gp for things we would not usually visit for just to get a letter. Wasting gp time because if we didn’t we were getting threatened.

"It’s the “computer says no” attitude that winds me up. Surely schools are aware of which families can’t be bothered, and the genuine cases. "

Surely you can see how difficult it would be for schools and staff to judge a family as genuine or not.

Imagine once word got out - anyone being contacted would know they'd been judged as a feckless malingerer and respond accordingly.

We treat everyone the same and hope parents are sensible enough to understand why I guess.

This is so sad. Surely as parents we want to open doors for our kids, not close them before they’ve reached adulthood. Going through school and getting GCSEs (+ or - A levels) gives them options. They can continue their education, or go into jobs or apprenticeships that require less formal academic qualifications. The choice is theirs. It is such a shame to remove that choice from them when they’re still too young to make the decision themselves.

As a previous poster said, I think it’s attitudes like this that schools are targeting, and sadly kids who are genuinely unwell are getting caught in the crossfire.

Attendance is a blunt instrument.

There is a vast difference between parents who don’t ensure their children attend school and those for whom the system has failed, because there is little or no support for their needs, whether emotional or medical.

Unfortunately, the system doesn’t allow for discriminating between the two.

It also seems to be the case that, since Covid, school is seen as less of a priority.

The problem isn’t the children with medical or mental health conditions. Thanks to covid we can easily provide work online if they are able to do some. Those with interested parents will maybe do some school work at home and generally not fall too far behind. Attendance letters are automated but that doesn’t mean the actual school doesn’t understand.

The problem is the children who just aren’t attending for no great reason and their parents who see no problem with that. We can post work but that doesn’t mean they will look at it. The very fact they are off without good reason generally means the parents don’t see education as important.

I disagree with the person saying it doesn’t matter. Schools are full of children who can’t even get an interview at Macdonalds because they don’t have basic English and Maths qualifications. And who can’t get into college or an apprenticeship because they lack some basic qualifications. Since they now need to be either in Education or employment until 18 (at least in. Scotland) that means the senior years are littered with kids who are there because they can’t just leave at 16.

The impact on basic literacy and numeracy skills of poor attendance in primary is huge. Pupils arriving to secondary with a reading age of 7 is sadly pretty common now. This makes it very difficult for them to even access secondary education. The support just isn’t there for these children who are struggling but don’t have any specific need other than to turn up more.
It’s a downward spiral. The parents don’t see that attendance is important. The kids behave badly as they don’t understand the lessons and the parents defend the kids and allow them to stay off even more.
Schools barely have the staff and funding to support those with genuine SEN let alone those who attend only 60% of the time because it’s easier to let them stay home than to make them go to school.

So many people get defensive about attendance- but it’s not your kids we are worried about. We know of health issues or family issues and try to support as much as we can. Schools don’t send out the shitty letters to be mean. It’s an automated process when a child reaches a trigger point.
We’re worried about the growing number of kids who just can’t be bothered with the parents who just don’t care.

Yes there’s access to uni etc you can return to later in life but it’s all so much more difficult when you’re 25 and still struggling with literacy.

The focus is on attendance because that makes it the parents and children's problem. If they can point fingers they don't have to make schools a place that kids want to or can be.

"It's true. Some schools do a lot to help, and go above and beyond. I think if families can't get the support needed from the wider system it must be tough though."

Yes, long waiting lists for CAMHS and other support services, and higher thresholds to actually access the support.

Schools bear the brunt because we are there every day, accessible and the face of education.

Most schools don't hate children and families, or want to annoy them.

But there's only so much we can achieve whilst still meeting the needs of the other children, budget etc

My youngest DS was sent home for a week due to chicken pox (it was going round about 10% of the school was off). We where told we had to keep him off until it scabbed (even though in reality its contagious phase is before symptoms show). We did so and then he was put on a watch list for dangerous low attendance and told we where being monitored and could be reported.

My oldest was off for ONE day this year, due to food poisoning. Yes it was during exam period but he only missed one exam but he literally couldn't get off the toilet (shy of an inbetweeners moment what are we expected to do) and we got an amber attendance alert.

Those are the only time either of my kids missed school this year. It definitely takes the piss when a kid can't have 1 day of illness or being threatened with investigation and being reported when THEY sent him home and insisted he stay off (how is that our fault? if they send then home under their attendance rules it shouldn't count as absence because its clearly not truancy).

It never use to be this bad.

I agree.

During Covid the schools closed and we all had to adjust to the new world in which we were told that home learning was perfectly adequate. Of course for the majority of kids it wasn’t adequate (proper home educators aside), and it’s well established that most kids learned less during Covid.

However, once that “got to go to school” habit had been broken, some parents/pupils have struggled to get it back. We’ve all been desensitised to the idea of missing school. I have friends who always sent their kids to school unless they were actually ill. Now they keep them home if they “just don’t feel like going”, or if there’s a football match they want to watch, or it’s the last week of term etc. These are educated parents, who got themselves a nice stack of qualifications, have good jobs, lives not chaotic.

I think it’s this disengagement that schools are trying to reverse. Because ultimately the main losers are the kids.

Our primary school allowed 5 days holiday a year in term time. They decreed that holidays are important and not everyone can afford to go away in school holidays. The school was ofsted outstanding and top in the county for sats results. It all changed about 6 years ago they could no longer get away with it