School asking for medical evidence.

[Flossy1989]

DD attendance is not the best it's 89.6 she's off now with sickness abd and the poops. The school is asking for medical evidence. I mentioned this some time ago to the gp. Gp said they should not be demanding medical evidence. Also I don't take my children to the gp over a tummy bug. It's not needed and it's wasting GP time.

I'm tempted to send them a picture of her vomit. I won't. It just really pisses me off gp is not impressed either from what he said before.

I'm on hold to gp /reception now doubt I will get anywhere. Caller number 15

The school are clearly concerned about the child's poor attendance and so they should be.
She is either a very sickly child or you keep her off at the drop of a hat.
It wasn't right to ask you a sick note and your not going to get one but the school needs to do something about her poor attendance

It averages out to half a day a week (if a week is 100%, so 1 day is 20%, half a day is 10%). That is quite a lot.

You'll probably get further with the GP if you have documentation of the number of days she is missing - the attendance report from the school would be helpful for that, especially if they list the reasons you gave for each absence - might suggest endometriosis (and she needs to take the medication). Or there could be a pattern where she misses every day there's a particular lesson.

I sent dds school a photo of a calpol bottle
and a very sarcastic email. They didn't reply.

I had this too for my son. I think the gp wrote to them to say he wouldn't do it. Bloody stressful times. School threatened me with a fine but never fined me.

It is unusual to have attendance this low and the school are required to follow this up. You are basically being told by the state that you aren’t parenting well enough because your child does not have a diagnosis of any long term medical condition but is off school far more than average. You should write to your MP if you don’t like it. The school doesn’t make the rules. They are simply following government guidelines.

It's not 7 weeks a year 🙄

It's about four weeks in a year, I think. Which is quite a lot, given that school is only open for 39 weeks.

It's really not great attendance but it is surprisingly not difficult to end up this low. It's about 29 days in a year. That sounds bad but a couple of bad viruses that knock you out for a week each in the first half of the academic year plus a couple of D&V episodes and you'll be there.

The earlier in the year you are poorly, the worse the attendance looks. If you are sick for 3 days in the first month of school you will be at this attendance rate

I don't understand why you're refusing to send in a picture of her vomit. Stop being silly and just send them the proof. Otherwise I can kinda see it from their side - they won't believe you are being genuine.

I just had a look at my emails under student absence. I found 9 emails from September till now. Its confused me a bit . As I was thinking she must have had around 9 days of. But then there was a positive covid within that and she probably had a week of for that I would have thought. So I'm a bit confused over the percentage bit.

I’d ask for a copy of the relevant school policy that details the need to provide medical evidence. Then with, or without it, I would raise a complaint. I work in a school and complaints are an administrative burden, so don’t give this advice lightly. As you rightly say, you cannot provide evidence as you do not wish to use a valuable GP appointment for a bad belly, and the GP is highly likely to refuse to give the evidence they requested. They’re being ridiculous.

Could they not send me a warning of some sort for a picture like that ?

You'll mark yourself down as That Parent and ruin your relationship with the school. People are being really daft encouraging it.

You really don't need to do anything, they will just be unauthorised. I would be doing all I could to ensure that your DD takes her medication and improves her health though.

@muggart "I don't understand why you're refusing to send in a picture of her vomit. Stop being silly and just send them the proof."

Presumably because the not-silly thing for her to do is to work with the school to try to get the best possible outcome for her dd? And to get better loo access for everyone....

Oh my god don’t send a photo!!! Contact doctor and if they won’t help then explain that. They are asking for evidence because absence is very high which is absolutely the right thing to do

Your DD has had over 10 days off school since September. If these are continually 1 day events, it certainly would ring alarm bells. It just one event ie op, then not normally an issue

There are only a few reasons to keep a child off school for one day, so the school may be looking into this.

At this rate your DD will miss 15 weeks of of secondary education (assuming secondary) over a 5 year period. Not great for their academic progress.

My DD has poor attendance. She has ongoing issues with school anxiety, although we've managed to minimise days off due to this, but has also suffered from recurrent bouts of severe tonsillitis. I have provided medical evidence (photos of antibiotics) for the tonsillitis but there's not much evidence I can provide when she's just having a really bad mental health day.

However, the DfE guidelines say schools should not be routinely asking for evidence of absence unless they have reason to doubt the veracity of what you say. I would quite the guidelines to them and get them to state in writing why they may have such reasons.

1 day a fortnight is 4 weeks off school over the course of an academic year. That's a lot of missed learning op.

Unless she's actively throwing up or pooping she really should be encouraged to go in.

Why do you think you would get into trouble? Who is it that you think will be giving you into trouble?

If she has D&V have you got her some Diaralyte from the chemist? Then you could send them a photo of the receipt proving you've bought it for this illness. You could send this first, then say if this isn't acceptable then do they want a photo of the vomit instead.

She is actively throwing up and the NHS guidelines which we are supposed to be following say 48 hours after its finished

Which didn't work in my youngest case I sent him back in after 48 hours he vomited again and had to come home no-one was impressed

I assume the people who are talking about their poor attendance and their subsequent excellent performance didn't study critical thinking or statistics. They are outliers, the majority of students with poor attendance tend to perform badly.

As for the poster who said parents know best and you won't get into trouble if your child is sick, do you know there are parents who lie?

If your sick your sick

Yes some parents lie but that shouldn't be everyone's problem

No don't send a picture of vomit, that won't do you any favours. Ask for a meeting with the school, then go in and discuss your child's absence face to face. Explain the situation with her heavy periods and they'll work with you to find solutions.