Child 40 mins late for school marked as absent

[Nurserymumm]

Our alarm clocks never went off this morning & my dc were late. Never happens. One dc now been marked as absent. What do I email the teacher. I have bad anxiety & upset dd has been marked absent. I don't know what to say on the absence note... Can it be reversed?

They were marked absent, because they weren't there when the register was taken.

The register should have been updated to 'late' when your child went into school.

They were marked absent because they weren't at registration - it really isn't a big deal in all honesty. Do you have any help dealing with your anxiety? It sounds like that's the bigger problem here.

Are they going to update it to late or keep it as absent?

Calm down, he was late, it happens. Email and ask for it to be changed to late, not absent. I'm sure their system will change it anyway- many systems update after break time (I work in a school). Such a minor thing to be stressed about- what impact will it have on your/ his life even if he was marked absent?

Yes I do suffer from anxiety badly. No the absent hasn't changed. It's the first time in 5 years they have been late. I haven't emailed a reason yet but nearly feel neglectful saying the alarm never went off even though it's the truth.

It’ll be changed in time. Usually office staff will get to it. Teacher is busy teaching, not changing the register.

Hi op, how do you know that the register mark hasn’t been changed to ‘late’? I’m a teacher and if a child isn’t there when we do the register we mark them as absent. If they arrive late then the secretary changes that to ‘late’. It’s important that a child who is in school is marked as such in case of fire alarms etc.
I wouldn’t worry about it though. You don’t need to write an absence note if your child isn’t absent and if they do require one then simply write ‘My child was unfortunately late (not absent) on the morning of 5th Jan because our alarm didn’t go off. Apologies for any inconvenience caused.’

I’m not sure what you’re worried about.

Surely when you arrived to school late you would have told the office receptionist the reason - “Sorry we’re late, I forgot to set the alarm”. There’s no need to email the school!!!
A register is a legal document that has to be completed at set times. In my school, it opens at 8.45 then closes at 9am. If a child arrives between 9 and 9.30am they are marked as ‘late’. If they arrive after 9.30, they are marked as ‘absent’. The only way it can be changed is if the child was in school at the right time but the staff put in the wrong code. Teachers do not touch the register once they have closed it at 9am, its all admin staff.

And it’s not a sign of neglect that your alarm didn’t go off! If this was happening regularly, it would be something that would flag up to school staff. Once in five years? They’ll not give it a second thought, honestly.

At the time the register was taken they were absent. So that's what it's marked as. If they have the option to update it to Late, they will in due course. Their afternoon mark will be Present. Register taken twice a day.

Also, even if she was absent, what's the problem with that?

Calm down. If your children were 40 mins late and you are posting before 10 a.m. that they were marked as absent they can barely have arrived in their classrooms before you posted! On what is possibly the first day back of term the teacher/office have a million other things to be doing before updating registers.

Don't worry about it! (Easier said than done if you have crippling anxiety).
The office staff will just change it as presumably you had to take your child to the office because gates/doors were shut?

Oh and trust me, they will have heard a lot worse than your alarm clock didn't go off!

We have repeat offenders who stroll in at whatever time their parents choose to roll up. One girl told me she was late (an hour and a half) because she was playing with her toys! Presumably her mum (mum brought her in) just let her get on with it 😂

I assume you're DC entered school by the main reception close to office. In that case, the person letting him in will have made a note he's present in school and will make any necessary amendments later when they're updating things.

Hi,
So on my daughter's school attendance app when she's late and it's under 20 minutes it marks it as a late mark but if she's late over the 20 minutes she's marked as absent for the full morning on that app but at school when she arrives there system updates to late but stays absent on the app as she loses the full morning attendance because she was over 20 minutes late. Very ridiculous and she has such a low percentage rate at school because of this and it's no fault of her own as she suffer with school anxiety and is a real struggle some days to get her there🤦🏼‍♀️

@Tee96 - funnily enough I’ve had the same problem, as a teacher. I noticed today my absence rate for the year was quite high and I couldn’t work out why when I’ve only had three days off. It turns out one hour medical appointments have been noted as an entire morning/afternoon!

Not sure if this is just procedure or not but I’m similarly perturbed by it.