I got fired today!!

That's not true given you can self certify for a week ?

I don't know if who all of these inhumane companies are

I agree - I’ve had to talk to someone about this kind of stuff in their probation. I’d expect to mention how too much sickness would look and ask if it was likely to be an on-going issue. Of course, a small business might have been panicky about the Dr/lights/migraine stuff but I’d expect to have said we might need to extend probation if things didn’t improve. Maybe they felt OP hadn’t been honest about disability - but sounds avoidable if they had discussed with @Amiunemployable and honestly it wouldn’t sit well with me to dismiss someone without trying to resolve it first and absolutely not out of the blue, that’s unnecessarily cold.

I think the law states your employer should give you a contract within two months. Also I imagine every job has a probation period. Maybe if you meet with them they would agree to extend your probation period.

So you start a new job, you then proceed to have a lot of time off, in the time you’ve been there. Looking at it from the employers perspective, as harsh as it seems, they can’t afford to employ you!

No, your former employer dodged a bullet by placing you on probationary employment where you would have no accrued PTO or sick leave and you failed the test. You show missing 1 day per week since you started the position, you can only account for 6 of those days which is fair too many in the first 12 weeks of a job. Learn from it.

Just a thought. I suffer from headaches from overhead lighting especially strip lights. I believe you can get spectacles which might help or even a head shade. Many offices are poorly lit so going forward visit opticians and do your research.

Try and sort support for when your 7 year old is unwell so you don’t need to take time off.
You now know that you’re entitled to a written contract and at interview ask about length of probation period. Also whether the employer has a limited number days to be taken for illness before called in to discuss.

It’s tough out there so you need to do all you can to ensure you keep your next job.

You say in your OP "...recieved PIP for a disability that does unfortunately mean it's difficult for me sometimes to get to work. But I have tried my best." If, in addition to your sickness and your child's sickness you've been late or absent from work on additional days, this will have been chalked up. You compounded that by not declaring your disability, so it will have looked like you were unreliable.

you are too late!? Why didn’t you ask for help/ speak to the union/ HR/ Acas before the meeting with your employer? Surely they hold a meeting, take notes you can present any new evidence without just firing you

6 or 11 days off is excessive in such a short period of time. If you have difficulty with your disability you need to manage your time more effectively. I am disabled and work, it takes me three hours from waking up to leaving the house. I get up earlier than most so l am ready and on time. Do not use your disability as an excuse, you accepted the job

Contact ACAS, they are really helpful.

What does your offer of employment letter say?

3 months is a normal probation period for an employee. I honestly think with the amount of days off you've had they had no choice. They were probably looking long term and unfortunately didn't think you were very reliable.

Sorry you've lost your job OP.
Its very odd that there is such a huge discrepancy in the record of sick days - surely you have some form of record and can challenge them.
I have to say though it's very unwise of you to have started working without a signed contract in place, and to let that continue to slip for a full 3 months. If it was a genuine admin oversight they would have readily addressed it if you'd raised it, and if not then you are well out of there.

You say that you didn't know about the probation period OP, if you had known would your absence have been any better?

I'm sorry OP but that is a lot of time off. Even 6 days is more than most have off in a year. Could you not have taken paracetamol and put up with it? You said two days off for migraines, what were all the rest for? Were you meant to work some Saturdays but didn't turn up and that would make it up to the 11 days they are stating. If a member of staff is off that much during their promotion period I'd be nervous hiring them, as surely they would be off more when they are not on probation and have signed their contract.

@GoodQueenWenceslausIn this case the boss appeared to be sympathetic and seemed ok with the absences at the time, so no, the person wouldn’t automatically assume it would endanger their job. A couple of months after I started my job I came down with a virus and my boss encouraged me to take time off to recover, even though I was still in the probation period. Not everybody works for a shit employer.

@cooksbrandedclockIt’s not very clear if it was 6 separate occasions or 6 days in total. If someone has a sickness bug the medical advice is not to be in contact with people for 48 hours after the symptoms stop (and symptoms could be anything from a day to a few weeks), so 6 days off really isn’t very much at all. Being ill for a week isn’t being “unreliable”, it’s not like the person is just taking the time off for fun. Again, would you rather they came in with a vomiting bug?

@Wickedlittledancer at this point the OP has nothing to lose so there is no harm in a conversation taking place (regardless of classification) even if it focuses on settling the actual number of days she took given the disparity - OP saying six days vs employer stating eleven. Relevant as future employer is likely to ask how many days sick she has has in past 12 months.

They have already let her go, reclassifying her days off won’t suddenly make them re hire her, it’s done.

What this policy resulted in, in my Council workplace, was employees were effectively incentivised to take more time off than they actually needed, knowing that every occasion counted as a strike. I think that at ours, instances were weighted higher than number of days off.

We had one colleague that everyone suspected to be faking it taking 5-7 days off every year, knowing she could do that quite easily without being questioned. I could tell my boss felt awkward having to sit down either me or one of my other colleagues and having to ask us about the whole instances thing when our number of days off were so low, and our days off were preferable to having us come in and infect everyone with norovirus or flu.

Op in terms of your absence for your child's sickness you are entitled to 5 days (unpaid) for caring for a "dependent". ACAS guidance confirms this includes children.

www.gov.uk/carers-leave

Perhaps ask for a breakdown of the time they allege you've taken in the first instance to see if that reduces the number down? Also, Maybe see whether your son's sickness could be reclassified as the above detailed leave (would be unpaid unless they agree to pay to reduce sickness further? The problem with this is that even if you do, they may just look to let you go anyway at this point so keep looking for another job regardless.

Of course, but the fact she’s never told them she’s got a disability kind of moots that, no?

I’m not disputing any of that, and have said several times that the OP’s absences don’t appear to be disability related, even if she had declared the disability in the first place. Where it is disability related, and the condition meets the definition of disability under the Equality Act, then proper procedures must be followed and alternative solutions to dismissal investigated before letting the employee go. That’s the law.

She already said she didn’t even know there was a probation period and probation is irrelvant, there is no employment rights before 2 years, the op worked there several weeks and took somewhere between 6 and 11 days off in that period, so they terminated,

How long was the probation period? It is normally 6 months so at this stage there should be a mid review meeting where you would advise that your probation may not be successful for.. (and set out the reasons) this gives you the opportunity to make changes, improve etc. Seems really unfair to not have warned you that this could be a possibility.