Is my child’s school being extremely unreasonable?

Why wouldn't you just have a conversation with the Head first? The AO has clearly got this wrong but going to the press seems completely OTT and probably not in the best interests of the children.

Madness - what an unsupportive school. I would escalate to the head and then the governors - even if you do this after the funeral when you are feeling more together (you shouldn’t have to think about this now - it’s important to think about your family first) - take the kids out of school so they can pay the respects your dad and culture deserves and that the kids also need . Then go to the governors and get the unauthorisation overturned. The attitude displayed by the attendance officer is a serious concern and you are not being unreasonable at all. Important to make school realise their job is not to make families lives difficult. To even mention that your child ‘has already had time off for surgery’ is beyond silly!

I’m sorry for your loss.

The school are being very unreasonable.

I would make this as public as you can. Social media, local newspaper. There is nobody who would think that the school is being reasonable.
Schools seem to care more about their reputation, attendance figures and social media PR than they do about their pupils and family’s these days.

I would be tempted to compose an email to the headteacher including the following and copying the governors:

"My father and my children's grandfather has suddenly and unexpectedly died. We are in shock and grieving. How dare you threaten us with fines and compliance action because my children will be attending his funeral? This is completely unacceptable and inhumane behaviour and unless we receive confirmation that the absence will be authorised and an apology, we will be taking the matter further."

My daughter lost her paternal grandfather in 2022 very suddenly.

I emailed school and said she's off the day after he passed and off for the funeral. They said, fine, even though she was in the midst of revising for GCSEs.

Previous medical leave shouldn't even come into it. Compassion goes a long way.

I'd flat refuse to pay a fine in these circumstances and explain myself to a court if necessary.
The attendance officer sounds quite mad.
Sorry about your dad.

I'm so sorry. You must be up the wall, such a shock and now this!

YANBU. My grandmother died last year - so my kids great grandmother - and we were granted 2 days off for the funeral. We only had to go down to London for the day, we could've done it by train if necessary but school actually offered their condolences and said it was fine, 2 days was ok.

The fact they're bringing up medical leave as a reason to say no is outrageous.

My children missed two days of school to attend a grandparents funeral due to the distance and school were lovely about it. It was a standard crematorium funeral plus wake but due to the distance and timing of it we couldn't do it in a day.
One of them had also had four tummy bugs in the school year so his attendance can't have been great before that.
I am not sure of the ins and outs of authorized vs unauthorised but even if they had to tell you you would be fined I would have expected any contact with you to be very very apologetic and sympathetic due to the circumstances.

Definitely unreasonable of the school. My daughters school authorises 1 day for weddings or funerals of close family members, not sure if that's standard practice.
The absence in June was last school year so shouldn't be relevant I don't think.

I'm so sorry to hear about your dad.

You are not being unreasonable. We had a similar situation with the sudden death of a very close family member. Due to the distance and funeral being on a Thursday, we also needed 3 days to attend. School couldn't have been more supportive. Not only did they approve the time with no questions, they provided materials to help the kids grapple with what had happened.

I know it's understandably the last thing you want to do right now, but I'd consider contacting the governors.

I’m so sorry for your loss.

Id ask to speak to the head or another member of SLT immediately. Whoever the AO has to answer to, and put it all in email as well. The surgery in July doesn’t count in the slightest for one thing, they’re a jobsworth who isn’t even jobsworthing correctly. Even if it did count in some bizarro world, I’m pretty sure the new guidelines start from this September. If it counted previous UA, many families would be facing retrospective fines right now. At worst this will be UA if the school are really that cold, but I’d absolutely remind them that they disrupted the whole schools education for a funeral recently, and if they choose to be hypocritical then it will be noted with a letter of complaint to the governors (but I’d leave that threat to all else fails).

Yes, they’re being VVVV unreasonable.

The complaints procedure will be avaliable on the website
I would also consider contacting your MP and updating your parent views with Ofsted which is not some thing I would recommend.

My condolences. The school are being very unreasonable. So much so that I can't quit believe it. Three days considering the travel is perfectly acceptable.

First of all its not down to the school to fine anyone its the local authority so she cant make that decision anyway.
It is down the the schools discretion however what would be deemed an authorised absence. where I work we usually only authorise for immediate family i.e. parents or siblings however it is down the the discretion of the attendance officer. If his attendance is otherwise good they could authorise it.

They cant fine you for less than 5 consecutive day absence, the ‘officer’ is being a t..t and nasty .

Awful.

I would put in writing

• surgery is not unauthorised absence but sickness
• funerals are the sort of exception that would normally be allowed and reference that the school has historically allowed this including in 2022 when the school closed for funeral attendance

Good luck

The charitable view is that the school are getting to grips with the new absence policy and being a bit heavy-handed in their interpretation.

I would go to the governors and Head. Hugely unreasonable not to authorise an absence for a funeral. It’s heartless.

I think they've got it wrong. It says on the government website that one of the circumstances in which they can miss school is if 'they're too ill to go in', which I'm sure must include them having surgery.

So sorry for your loss.

What an arse. My children recently took two days out authorised for a grandparent’s funeral due to the travel. I’d have been livid if anyone had kicked up a fuss.

So sorry about your dad op.

I definitely think you should fight the surgery counting to any time off as that was clearly a medical need.

The new regulations also only came into force in August so an absence in July shouldn't be counted.

At the school I work at we would always authorise the day of the funeral, however we get a lot of requests that include overseas travel and so we usually would only authorise 1 or 2 days for a funeral.

School admissions are under huge pressures with the new restrictions however there is absolutely no need to be unpleasant to a grieving family.

Surely July wasn’t unauthorised though? So doesn’t put you over the threshold for a fine?

They are very U though

I am sorry about your dad.

Whilst I do think the school are being unreasonable, new rules about attendance have come into place so being unreasonable about time off is going to be the norm now.

I would take it further to see if it can be changed to authorised (even if it needs to be backdated after the funeral has happened) but take your children anyway.

YANBU and I'm very sorry to hear of your father's death.

Why did they give your son unauthorised absences for surgery? It should have been marked as authorised under medical circumstances/illness.

A few months ago, there was another AIBU thread where a mum asked if she was being unreasonable to press the school to change an absence to authorised. Many Mumsnetters stuck their noses in to say she was being unreasonable and persnickety and unfair on the office staff. They couldn't understand why it's important to keep the record straight. Nor did they seem to grasp the idea that local authorities will jump to issue fines, and that the main way to combat this is to make damn sure that your child's absences are always authorised, and fight them on this point if necessary.

Having also suffered a bereavement recently, I honestly think some people enjoy making people’s lives difficult at a time when they just need people to make them that tiny bit easier.

This is so true! I really hope Karma is real because people are awful when you're already down 😥