Can I refuse this school meeting?

I'm expecting one of these soon as my son has just had 4.5 days off (school sent him home on the first day) and he had two days in Sept so attendance is about 92% for this year.

His two days were because of the 48 hour rule for D&V and most recently was the cold/flu which completely wiped him out.

He had 100% last year so he was due some bugs. Hopefully it can be dealt with by phone/email.

Agreed. There’s this weird idea that somehow children shouldn’t get sick, of course children get sick, especially if they are surrounded by other children. They also aren’t allowed time to recover as there’s such a pressure to send them back in.

Yes, it does seem to be communicated this way. The flipside of the health discussions we are having is that DD went straight back to 2 tests, which included questions that were covered in the (very short) time she was unwell. I didn't expect full performance at all, and the marks for these were not great, but outliers compared to the term's performance. Guess what, she got penalised for those as well, rather than the rationale of 'this was a bad day or 2', so it's not just attendance rewards that backfire.

Next time, I would have to reconsider sending her back if there are tests - if she's 'punished' for the results without wider context, I would rather she took them when all work is at least done for them, even if that takes a day or 2 of chasing the resources.

You can't be expected to take a day off work to attend for a chat, what do they think you're just sitting around twiddling your thumbs waiting for them .

You've enough evidence to prove your child was sick they sent him home Fri so they knew he was ill. Sometimes there isn't evidence as they recoup at home.

Some schools are idiots, I remember with one of mine in hospital with pneumonia and they rang me that much and wanted me to stop off at school that I sent a video and pic of my child in hospital !

They make the 48 hour rule so you're following them, if they don't like it will they be happy your child going in spreading it. I'd be saying that.

Attendance celebrations are insane. Totally unfair on children who have a chronic illness.

Agreed. There’s this weird idea that somehow children shouldn’t get sick, of course children get sick, especially if they are surrounded by other children. They also aren’t allowed time to recover as there’s such a pressure to send them back in.
There were parents at DDs primary who were chronically late, not because they had issues, because they didn’t care. One mum lived next door to the school and would try and get up at 8.30am, they were late most days with a 1 minute walk. She just wasn’t bothered.

Attendance celebrations are ridiculous. Nearly all of the children “excluded” from it, ie all those not going, bar a very few will be excluded because they got sick. It’s always been unfair.

Re your OP, I had a letter from the council in similar circumstances- there had never been one from the school in the interim so not a further step - and I just told them all the circumstances of the absences. That was enough.

I would also refuse the meeting - I’d email them reminding them of what you’ve said here, and if not I’d ask for a telephone conversation rather than face to face.

Are all these automated letters posted? If they are what a waste of money on stamps, paper, ink.

Ask for a call or Zoom meeting instead?
The school won’t want this meeting any more than you do, but they have to be able to show Ofsted that they are monitoring and acting on absences. 🤷🏼‍♀️

When I was in school my dad could only have the 2 weeks off before summer hols
Just needed a holiday form to be signed and off we went.
Similar thing in the 90s/00s when my kids were in school. Just once when it was icy outside and I didnt have a car, we had quite a long walk to school. I rang and said they werent coming in. The school secretary was really snotty saying its not that bad, they csnt be missing school. They were 5 and 6 FFS

There's just a trigger point when the % goes over a certain range. Email back to say you're happy to chat but due to work please could this be a phone call or teams meeting.

The attendance pressures come from the local authority as well as Estyn/Ofsted. The LA publish the data in ours and circulate it.

Obvs in your case it all makes sense and it's nothing to be concerned about, it's just how his time being poorly has fallen. Sometimes a change in attendance can indicate something else is going on so systems are in place as a safety net, you've not got anything to worry about but it's helpful to engage with the school in good faith.

The DfE are weirdly obsessed with attendance - they've got all these stats showing how a few days of missed school equals thousands of pounds of future earnings, without really explaining how that link works. https://educationhub.blog.gov.uk/2025/08/why-school-attendance-matters-and-what-were-doing-to-improve-it/

An engaged high-achieving child with a few nasty colds or bouts of D&V in a row is not really the child of concern for the school, it's the kid who never comes in on Fridays, and often doesn't make it in on Mondays either, or who is late almost every day. But the computerised targets and policies will kick in regardless.

Our school no longer have the 48 hour rule. As long as they have stopped vomiting in the year allowed back in school

Of course it seems a bit short-sighted really given improbably means that infection spreads more

I also think it's not true that schools are made to send the letters. My children's primary school said this as their defense, but notably the secondary school (which is in the same local authority area has not sent letters) even though my son's attendance is pretty poor this year for various reasons

My dgc was sick on eating her school lunch. Dad was called to get her, absolutely nothing wrong but forced to take her home and follow the two day vomit rule. As child was well, Dad took her to the park where they met a class mate, who had also vomitted the same dinner item. Luckily Dad self employed so was ok but Mum is a nurse on a twelve hour shift, if Dad had been working away that week, Mum would have lost two and a half days from a busy front line NHS job in winter crisis. This is what happens when trained prosessionals in schools are not allowed to use common sense. Child loves school and was not happy.

I could not be doing with that nonsense! What happens if you ignore it?

I take DS out of secondary school for all sorts of fun pointless stuff and school don’t bat an eyelid.

Mind you, we’re in Ireland and he’s in Transition year having aced his Junior Cert so school won’t care.

I’m taking him to the UK in late April for a week for some work experience with a family member. School positively encouraged it.

He’ll be back on it next year as they prepare for the Leaving Cert.

Offer a phone call only.
If THEY can't facilitate that, its on them.
Email the above, you cannot leave work for something that can be dealt with over the phone.
Also include the explanation you have given above for those absences.

I was suggesting that, to the employer, a day off is a day off therefore yet another one for the OP might genuinely something the employer might take issue with, to say nothing of the possibility that the OP might have specific, important work commitments that particular day missing which could be damaging for the employer’s function. Because of this it is a reasonable point to make to the school.

Its likely just an automatic letter that is triggered but the % absence he has had. They have to send it and speak to you (although you could request a telephone call I suppose to cover the meeting) to show they are tackling absence rates.

For someone like you who their child has been genuinely ill, it will literally just be a process tick box exercise. Yes he was ill, no there was nothing you could do to avoid it. Thank you bye sort of conversation.
But for every you, there will be someone who just keeps their child off for no reason. These are the people they are trying to find and help/support in making sure those children are at school.

See my reply above. I was told the letter was a letter that was sent to all parents of children whose attendance was below 95%. Their attendance could be 94.9% and you'd still get one. It didn't matter the reason their attendance was lower than 95% - no distinction between children with long-term health issues etc.

I wrote a long letter to the school telling them how inappropriate it was to send such a letter to the mother of a child victim of DV/child abuse (I am also a victim of the same perpetrator).

I got told at a subsequent meeting that the school were made to send the letters by the LA. I pointed out that regardless, the school should have used their knowledge and discretion about individual mitigating circumstances to personally give the letters to parents of children with long-term health issues and explain this. As there was no distinction between authorised and unauthorised absence or parents who kept their children off at the drop of a hat and whose children had attendance in the 60% range etc.

Just reply and say that all absences were due to either being too ill to attend or because of school policy regarding illnesses, so could this meeting be a phone call please

No you don't have to go in. Tell them to call you if they absolutely need to speak to you.

I used to be a a head of year and had to hold many of these meetings - as soon as attendance dropped below a certain amount, we had to invite parents in for a meeting. They were almost always a waste of time because we knew why they’d been off, but occasionally it would flag up something we weren’t aware of, so I suppose overall it was better to have them than not.

The main thing to be aware of is if absences get to a point of being referred to the local authority, they will ask the school about whether the parents attended any meetings, and if not, then it looks like a refusal to engage. To avoid this, we’d always do what we could to make attendance meetings as convenient as we could for parents (usually we’d tack them onto parents evenings, or other occasions when we knew parents were coming in anyway).

So I’d encourage you to engage with the school (Teams meeting perhaps?) but also be well aware that it is absolutely a tick box exercise and not worry about it.

I had an attendance letter from school a couple of years ago for my daughter who was 0.9% below the minimum attendance (95%) because she was attending CAMHS therapy to help her deal with developmental trauma/PTSD due to child abuse sustained at the hands of her father.

The school knew that she was going to these weekly sessions and that I had no say in what time they were (before afternoon register). They authorised them but because they made her attendance drop, I got a letter threatening that if I didn't improve her attendance, I might be taken to court.

I arrived home from therapy to this letter on my doormat and I went batsh!t crazy.

Ironically, we got off-rolled in the end because they couldn't provide her with the type of support and environment she needed coupled with being academically bright and bored.

Agree, it's a poor excuse to hide behind automation

Since when did schools start acting like the Gestapo? Next time send your DC in and let the whole class go down with a bug 😉