School absence rules are super powering the spread of flu

@OhDear111couldn't attach it, so have it here instead.

I wasn’t blaming DC as part of a wider societal trend, FFS, just feeling cross that the OG poster said something like that she hoped teachers would be kept to the same high standards as students on attendance. I can assure you that we are; the disability part of the discrimination laws of 2010 can’t stop me from being put on capability just for illness… I just have to hope and pray that my employer is kind to me and sees that I’m trying my hardest and doing a decent job when I’m there.

As for reconsidering what my job should be… I trained hard for this job 20 years ago when I was in robust health. It’s only in the last five I’ve been this fucked, shell of a person. Bit hard to retrain in my current, broken state. Maybe I should claim more benefits (I already get PIP, just so you and your kind know and can hate me more) but I suspect you’d hate that and expect me to “get on my bike” and all that. Oh and FWIW I and not a single colleague of mine ever refused to work with kids during Covid. We carried on planning and delivering lessons and resources throughout… the whole teachers refusing to educate thing was bollocks spun by Johnson’s Downing Street and put out by rags like The Mail (see attached photo of just one piece of propaganda front page) to cover up their bad choices, incompetence and bad behaviour.

And FWIW teachers aren’t given free Covid and Flu jabs. I fully agree that they should get the jabs, but they cost money. I can see that if you’re a healthy EPQ on peanuts you won’t want to spend circa £70 on getting jabbed. You might not even have the choice to, it might make the difference between eating and heating for you and/or your kids. So if we want all teachers in school all of the time, get them jabbed as a matter of public interest, like we do with the kids.

But from the tone of this I suspect that you’re either a teacher-hater, disabled-hater, or both! Don’t worry though, as prisons are overcrowded, the union workhouses closed and the treadmill and poor law no longer in full vigour, I and many like me, will do our best to die and decrease the surplus population.

DS will get the flu jab at school tomorrow having already along with quite a few of his peers had it already

@LambriniBobInIsleworthISeesYa I think we have got to the point where parents mostly want dc to attend school. They were pushed to one side during Covid as teachers in many cases didn’t want to work with dc and blamed them, as you are doing, for spreading germs. We all know illness can be spread. What we need to do is ensure jabs are taken up, preferably via school nurses. Teachers too. We cannot keep allowing children to be accused of health crimes when all the want is an education. If people aren’t up to being with others they need to think about what their job should be.

A society that blames dc all the time is unpleasant and causing a myriad of issues. What are parents meant to do? All be stay at home parents? How does that work when some parents are essential workers? Dc with minor colds should go to school.

I got a shittily worded attendance letter recently for DC having 5 days off with chickenpox. No other absences this year. Schools are not helping themselves.

The flu already went through my DCs secondary schools like a wildfire some weeks back. When the press catch on to this stuff it is always too late. The old and vulnerable need to have the jab and not go out if they are worried.

The politicians need to get the doctors’ strike cancelled.

For the record, if my child had a temperature or felt actually unwell I wouldn’t send them. Id they had “sniffles” or a bit of a cough I would.

I feel for you and your child but since it’s clear that flu can be just a runny nose in kids do you think that anyone with a runny nose should stay at home? I think kids shout get a flu jab, be taught good infection control and hygiene and be sent to school. I don’t think my child should have to stay at home because you don’t want your child to, sorry.

I have a child who is susceptable to flu, how long would you suggest they stay at home....doesn't the flu season run from about September til February 🤔

I had an email from my son’s secondary school last week saying that they don’t follow the 48 hour rule after sickness. I won’t be listening to them if that situation rises.

I run the medical room in a large school. I don’t want your kids in school if they are genuinely unwell. This last term has been awful for sick bugs/ viruses. However, a genuine fact, we have a few year 11s who still have 100% attendance, which is unbelievable. I know the kids who are pulling a fast one -like one today who told me he was feeling very sick, whilst eating a large sausage roll….

Hey, your daughter’s English teacher here (or at the very least, a colleague and fellow sick-note)!

I caught covid from a kid in school (maybe your daughter as you see most school absence as unnecessary?) a month ago. Bad enough if I wasn’t vulnerable, but I have Lupus. I had the vaccination in September (along with my flu) but caught it anyway. Covid became a severe chest infection and then I developed shingles too. Am pumped full of steroids and on my fourth week in bed.

Sorry about your daughter's upcoming exams. If it makes you feel better I can’t take care of my own kids, am worried for my job despite being good at it aside from being ill with a disease that’s not my fault and makes me vulnerable to the world outside (and don’t worry, those attendance figures DO count for me as a member of staff) and Christmas is fast approaching but I’ve done no shopping, so am somewhat stressed. Please accept my apologies for all of the above and for Keir Starmer too (as I’m sure you hate him too).

Fuckity bye.

@BorgQueen totally agree.

It's rocket science isn't it.
We are in a supposed crisis so why not have winter NHS crisis protocol.
Eg forget school uniform ,wear as warm as possible keep windows open a little and an opposite door.
Or air the room every 45 mins ?
Teachers forget fashion wear and dress for warmth.

And roll out proper ventilation .

And yes relax attendance rules .

Poorly, temperature, pain and/or vomiting; DC are staying home, regardless of illness procedures.

Coughs and colds; they’re going in.

Not true. Sometimes you can vomit once and then it's over. But the 48 hour rule means that the school themselves are excluding children from the prize they have paraded in front of them as the be all and end all.

Nope. If they feel OK, they go in. Can't have it both ways.

You said d&v! No one is feeling well with d&v

It isn't anyone's fault, that's the point. There is no personal merit in attending 100% of the days - and yet there is much reward.

If they place so much value in my kid being there 100% of the time, in they go.

I said if they themselves feel well.

But the alternative is that no children attend her class. Most illnesses are infectious days before they're symptomatic, that's how successful viruses work.

Because they make the children care about them. They make it such a song and dance that some children are crushed when they don't get it. It's emotional leverage using the child as the pawn. My own DS was so anxious about being 'bad' and missing a day that he gets distraught if there's even a hint that he might be off - we had days of anxiety when he had a hospital pre op appointment and I couldn't change it. He sees it as a personal failure because that's what they've made it into.

Schools reap what they sow.

I agree with your opinion on attendance awards. But the purpose of them is to make the children care because they want the reward.
Pointless though because at primary school, for most children it is not their decision whether they go in or not. If I decide my DD is too ill and she argues with me because she wants an attendance award, I wouldn’t say “oh ok then, off you go with your raging fever and vomiting”.
Attendance awards are also all or nothing. So once you’ve missed one day, if you were solely motivated by the award that has now completely gone so who cares.

Attendance awards are absolute shit and very bad practice. That aside I don’t understand why any pupil/parent would give two hoots about their attendance. It is a metric the schools care about.

@OklowkayGenuine question - Would you still do this if there was a child with leukaemia in your DC’s school? I’m asking because there is in my DC’s primary; She’s just come back after another round of chemo and her mum keeps reminding everyone how imperative it is to keep any & all illnesses away from her as it could kill her (Lord forbid). Yet people are still sending their children in, visibly sick and hacking coughs

And actually mostly shitty to your own unwell child who wants to stay home not vomit in class!

There is a little girl with Leukaemia in our school and yet some parents are STILL sending their children in poorly and the school is still sending letters telling off parents (after a 2 week ‘mini pandemic’ within the school where quite literally 60% of the school were off sick at the same time) for keeping their kids off 🙄🤷🏼‍♀️