More about school absence - what is lawful?

They are in year 10 and year 11?

these are important years and to have 80% attendance is a bit pants really

My son was in a similar situation with much lower attendance. I got all the letters as they are automatically sent but as I was cooperative with school and talked to them in person, I didn’t feel victimized.

I had meetings with the school to explain that things wouldn’t change until he was top of the NHS waiting lists and the GP wasn’t going to call school
or see ds each time he couldn’t attend school. Basically I told them that there was nothing I could do unless they were able to get ds to the top of the list.

You have to play the attendance game if it bothers you. For example if the orthodontist appointment is at 10:30am, send ds to school to get him marked on the register then take him home. For attendance data purposes, it counts as being at school all morning. If you can get him back to school before afternoon register then for the purposes of the data, your ds was at school all day.

If only we could pick appointments lol.

One of mine has a low attendance at times below 80% it's unavoidable, for him it's following the school policy that makes it worse. They enforce a 48 hour absence period so he frequently misses 2+ days every 3-6 weeks, then when other children get sent in unwell because their parents are scared of low attendance he misses more time because he reacts severely to many illnesses. That's not including appointments, if you get a paeds Appointment there's no changing it to a convenient time they are like rocking horse shit you take what you can!

To get to 80% for a term youve got to have missed 24 sessions (eg one term is 12 weeks, 5 days per week, 2 sessions a day).

It's a hell of a lot of absence? I say that as a parent of a child with health issues whos had two surgeries in the last 2 years and is under 3 different consultants. Usually medical appointments/surgeries etc are coded differently to being off ill. How much of the absence is just them being kept home with coughs & colds etc?

Army DDs school ANY absence without a doctors note goes down as unauthorised. It's an absolute piss take

@Interpink I have had this discussion a couple of times with different people and at different schools (DS has had an interesting journey so far!)

Basically they said to me all attendance is scruntised (and this started years ago that scrutiny has only worsen) and they basically get asked about why pupil whose attendance is below a certain level. If there is evidence and proper notes attached to the file (and every pupil has a file with everything attached it is much easier)

The letter and emails are probably a process thing. The school need to be seen to be doing everything they can to address it. 80% equates to 1 day off a week which seems alot. Have they had any meeting with you to go over it?
I'd ask for a record of what they have as absent so far this year. Cross reference with what appointment they were at. If they are all legitimate, just ignore them or at a push send them a breakdown of what and why.

It's all about being in for morning and afternoon registration. Where possible make sure they are there for those even if you are just taking them out half an hour later.

Our school policy is below 95% you get an email, below 90% you get a meeting, below 85% you have to start submitting evidence for absences. We also get termly reminders of what is and isn't acceptable for an absence.

I think school would accept all this if you sent the evidence in. It shouldn't take that long to get it all together if most of it was related to one or two providers.

It's also about the message you are sending your children. At the moment, you're showing them that school is fair game to be missed if something else makes it a little inconvenient.

I don't think the OP suggested that the school had marked absences as unauthorised just that, going forwards, they would need to see proof of appointment. This could be text, email or appointment slip.
My GP sends out sms reminders of appointments when booked (also helps limit missed appointments).
With a high level of absence and, perhaps, a slight suspicion that the OP is not making enough effort to make sure the child attends this seems reasonable.

My kids orthodontist has appointments from 8am. Are you asking for appointments early or late so they don’t miss school?. It may mean you have to wait longer between tightening etc but given their absence it makes sense to do whatever you can to get them into school.

Attendance is not something to be mortified about. If your child is ill, they are ill, it's nobody's fault.

@sexnotgenders we've never been able to change a hospital paediatrics appointment but they've converted them to a phone appointment when we've been on holiday, which helps - they need DS height and weight but we have 2 parallel sets of regular 6 monthly appointments i.e. every 3 months and they can accept our measurements at some of them.

I get you couldn't choose the hospital but why is your orthodontist so far away? If it's because you're rural then that 30miles probably doesn't take that long to drive. I kind of understand as my DS's orthodontist will only see NHS patients between 10 and 1, but even if he has the 10am appointment he goes in for an hour and I collect him and drop him back after.

I do sympathise as my DS has a lot of appointments (luckily local, and he is in an independent specialist school with many pupils that hardly ever attend, he's there every day he isn't ill). I would be playing the registration game - we had an appointment 2 hours away which was actually in the summer holidays but I would have taken him to school myself, registered and taken him straight there if I'd been in your situation.

If we have a 12noon appointment we pick him up at 11 (if local), this happens a lot, if 9.30 am we take him afterwards, in time for lunch if possible, if not, in time for afternoon registration. The school is actually understanding and gives out 100% attendance certificates not counting medical days, and he's not down to 80% even with that. But we try and minimise.

It is wasnt a routine dentist appointment. It was hospital appointments. Going from experience you carnt just change hospital appointments to suit you. If you change the appointment you can be waiting months for an appointment.

OP, every dentist appointment I had as a child was at 4pm, as my mother wouldn't allow me to miss school. There's also many weeks of the year that are school holidays, for routine appointments.
They need to be in school, and they are currently missing 20% of their education - doesn't that worry you at all?

Maybe the tone of the emails you have received from the school reflects the fact that they don’t think you’re making appropriate effort to maximise your children’s school attendance. And given you apparently think it acceptable to miss a whole day of school for an orthodontist appointment, I’m minded to agree with their tone. Attendance matters. And like it or not, what the school think of you and your kids matters too. Maybe stop losing your patience with them and see them as the educators they are, wanting the best outcomes for your kids, and work with them to improve the frankly terrible attendance record they have. Sometimes absence is unavoidable, but by your own admission they could be in school more.

My DD has regular hospital appointments due to a chronic medical condition, but I always schedule these after 3pm, that way I can pick her up towards the end of the school day - her attendance is recorded, and more importantly it has the least impact on her school day and therefore her learning. I have made it clear to her medical team that both her health and her education matter and they have been very accommodating with schedules in response.

If it's medical absence they are breaking the law by marking it as unauthorised but unfortunately a lot of schools don't give a shit about the law. Send evidence of the appointments otherwise you might get fined. Make a complaint if they've marked your child unauthorised. You might still get fined anyway but what else are you supposed to do? Send your sick child to school so that it's a tick on the attendance register, regardless of whether they're actually well enough to learn? Many school staff are just arseholes who care more about attendance data than they do children.

To be fair 80% attendance means your children bave missed one day every single week since thy started. Back. If my kids were missing that level of school, I would not be adding to it by missing full days for appointments .

This, @Interpink you said They have said that without GP letters they won’t authorise any further absences. Both of my children have had minor surgery and then follow up appointments and as the hospital that they’re under are nowhere near school, if the appointment is in the middle of the day they’re missing a whole day, which whilst not ideal is unavoidable. well you must have had letters or texts about these, all they're.asking is you provide the appt letter and they'll authorise?

Yes of course but there's a massive gap between straight 9s and handful of 4s isn't there. And 6/7s are enough for most things. Lots of L2/3 college courses out there with 3 grade 3s too. I don't like the narrative that grade at 16 are permanently life changing. They aren't and I've seen kids and parents driven demented by the pressure and stress of dragging kids through a system to the detriment of their health.

Usually I would say the schools have to follow up attendance below a certain percentage, don't worry about it, because absences can't be helped. Frankly though, if you think having all day off for a orthodontist appointment 30 miles away is ok, I wonder what else you are using as an excuse:
1 hour drive there
1 hour there
1 hour back
Even if the appointment was at 12 in the middle of the day - that's 2 hours in school before you take her out at 10.45 and 1 hour in school after you drop her off at 2. If you could make early appointments say at 9.30, she doesn't go in first but is back by 11.30, she's in for 3 and 1/2 hours, maybe more if school ends at 3.30. If your child had had no other time off and only had one or two appointments in the academic year then fair enough to take her out for the whole day, but at this point, you should be trying your level best to get in school for every minute you can.