Are we losing the plot re: attendance?

[BlueySchmooey]

Are we losing the plot re: attendance?

https://x.com/catinthehat/status/1840399910769672198?s=46&t=G9BWOZlYGPa11_pR7aKkbHQ

We need to bring back different types of schools. Massive secondary schools with 30 in a class, busy corridors and loud yards are clearly not appropriate for many children. Inclusion has been a massive cost cutting experiment that has failed and continues to fail a generation.

There are always a few exceptions.
and think about the logic of what you’ve just said. Yes doing homework, consolidating outside of class etc, absolutely contributes to academic success.
but how are you meant to do your homework if you’re not even doing your class work? How are you meant to get feedback on your homework if you’re not in school to receive it? (And by the way I will always email feedback/catch up work to students who are often absent - rarely get a response).

if you think there are all these children out there doing well in GCSEs who rarely go to school but who amazingly do all their homework…I’m sorry that’s a fantasy.

Leaving aside the FACT that many kids do perfectly well with a home education, what a pointless post. There is a pretty small minority of parents who don't actually care if their kids are in school are not. Those if us struggling through EBSA or physical illness do actually know your "fact". Do you think we don't? Do you think we don't lie awake worrying about what career they'll have or how they'll have to resit exams? As well as if we'll get dragged to court? Why is it so difficult for those in power to exercise nuance and be perfectly clear they understand there are varied reasons for low attendance a lot of the blame lies with the chronic underfunding of SEN and CAMHS.

@Emmascout1774 I was being a bit literal, sorry. Non attendees fall into many different camps of course. Probably depends on where your school is, and the reasons why students aren't going in. There are the cba ones of course, but those with chronic illnesses, and school refusers with supportive parents and schools that have strategies, can still do still end up doing well.

I too am a parent of a SEN child. I'd like to know what the school's role in this is. 100% attendance means not only no sick kids, it means fabulous SEN provision and no bullying at all. Should be easy, no?

Have you been in a school lately?

Let’s assume from your tone towards Emma that you have.
So you’re aware that for a vast number of young people school is: their warm place when it’s cold; where they get fed a decent, hot meal; where there are safe adults for them to speak to; where they don’t have to care for anyone else and can be a young person and where there are people looking out for them and keeping track of their health and wellbeing.

This may not be true for all young people and children. There are undoubtedly many who struggle with school.

This doesn’t take away from the fact that schools are one of the main ways we have of safeguarding children and young people against harm at home.

80% attendance is equivalent to missing one day a week. I can’t imagine many jobs that would accept this level of absence (I’m sure many of the parents on this thread wouldn’t be impressed if their child’s teacher had this level of attendance)

It's already getting ridiculous. At my youngest school the staff have had to send over 15 kids who have been vomiting home in the past 3 weeks! They've had to send a email out telling parents to stop bringing sick kids to school for the sake of the immune compromised kids & staff.

So much pressure now to have perfect attendance, it's disgusting.

We home educate for similar reasons. When my dd gets ill, it goes straight to her chest. When she was younger, she would end up in hospital for every cold. I was a teacher before choosing to stay at home with her and honestly, couldn't face fighting with schools and attendance, while allowing her the time to recover fully.

So, we chose to home educate. She's healthier, because she gets so much time outside and we give her body time to rest. She loves learning, and once she has recovered enough, we can continue doing formal learning, before she would be ready to go out.

Please be assured that ordinary classroom teachers and other school staff don't agree with this push for 100% attendance, even when sick.

Selfishly, it just means we get sick, too. We have huge amounts of covid, whooping cough and other illnesses going around my school atm because of sick kids coming in. Teachers are then off sick because they are actually very ill, and your child already has a supply teacher or no teacher.

This is a govt and sometimes a senior management policy that is at fault.

Agree, but I would really like to see data for the number of absences due to holidays, parents can't be arsed to get out of bed reasons vs parents who are absolutely desperate for their children to attend school but are struggling with bullying, illness and serious MH issues.

You cannot have a policy that targets the first group of parents and pretends the second group doesn't exist - especially when, as I suspect, the second group are driving the upwards increase in low attendance.

The thing is... It can't quite be pot luck, because there are whole schools out there where average attendance is 97, 98%.
I don't agree with the poster at all, but someone does need to work out why it is that in some schools literally hundreds of children are getting really high attendance (and no they aren't vomiting in the corners having been sent in sick) yet in others attendance is much, much lower.
So there has to be some reason for that.

I'm not sure why schools seem to increasingly out of step with the rest of society, but the gap seems to widening. One of main arguments for uniform was preparing you for the world of work, but very few people wear a suit to work now and it's much more relaxed. Similarly working times/practices are generally more flexible with WFH and less presenteeism.

Then they finish school and if go to University they'll be just be let to do what they fancy basically!

If I turned up to work in "whatever I wanted" I'd be disciplined. Same as if I only had an 80% attendance rate.

Causation / correlation. You might want to look it up.

Why do people need things sugar coated? This link was actually blurred incase a fully grown adult was upset by it!

Because this shit is traumatic to see when your disabled child has been a victim of it.

2 of my dc are diagnosed autistic, 1 is on the waiting list. One of the most traumatic part of bringing them up has been school. The damaging attendance expectations, the constant and needless pressure, the lack of care from teachers and others who really should know better (I know government directives, but it’s like some teachers have sold their souls to the government at this point!).

I’m now home educating, like so many in my situation, which is wrong. Don’t get me wrong, HE is suiting dc, but we’re only here because school was so inflexible about dc’s poor attendance, which was only a problem because of his anxiety around school, just like thousands of other children.

I wish that the streaming and online lessons of lockdown could be an available backup option for children like mine.
Dc has some regular tuition, but to access a full curriculum would cost nearly £1000 a month.

IME the school and teachers that take a more flexible approach do more to boost children like mine. Sadly they’re a declining breed.

How does anyone know that poster is legit? It's on X.

And even so it's one school.

Another storm in a teacup.

Many parents are happy to whinge about school and provision, but no one is prepared to train as a teacher or TA, even to help their local school and their children.

Education can't be bespoke.

Doesn't anyone just tell the kids, them the rules suck it up buttercup. Because jobs are like that.

My parents did.

The rule was if we were off sick we were in bed. If we could get out of bed and do stuff (play on the computer, read etc.) we were well enough to go to school. If the school disagreed they'd send us home.

I would love to call into work when I feel a bit crappy. I have a cold right now, nothing serious but it's enough for me to want to stay in bed. But if I do that I lose pay and face consequences at work if I'm off sick too often. So I'm on my way into work, because that's how life goes.

I can easily argue against it.
My son has a life limiting heart condition with resultant immune issues. He attended when he could, in between his frequent surgeries and hospitalisations. The school would ring and tell me when chicken pox/measles/whatever was in school and advise me not to send him in.
Not once did he win an attendance award or get above 90% while weeBilly (who was sent in with every bug going, spreading it around the school because his neglectful mother couldn’t be bothered having him at home despite him throwing up) got every attendance award and attendance reward going.
My son spent his entire school career being made to feel less because he couldn’t have full attendance. My son is now in his final year of an honours degree ( predicted a first) while weeBilly down the road sits at home doing nothing.
It not that simple and I am sick to death to listening to the above argument

Not sure how a “well-being” poster like this helps anyone.
Any parent choosing to take their children out of school to go on holiday will ignore it.
Abusive parents will ignore it.
There are better ways to deal with this than shaming children and families who likely have little control over their attendance for whatever reason, and making threats to parents of disabled and chronically ill children.

I’d see your point if there was a nuanced approach, a bit of understanding around illness and disability, over school-created anxiety, but no, we are as bad if not worse than those who choose to take their children out for holidays. We have the pleasure () of being blamed for our dc’s issues, and often we are autistic too, and communication in those stressful situations can be difficult, which also goes against us.

Recent years have seen a huge increase in home education - wonder why? - and one of the fastest growing demographic (according to HE groups I’m on) are teachers who don’t want their children in the current school environment.

This draconian approach helps few and alienates many.

@Emmascout1774 (and might as well @RockyRogue1001 in this too), I'm also a teacher and agree with every word you say, also having worked with literally thousands of children.

I never in a million years thought I'd be in the situation where my own DC would not attend school. After all, I've coached so many parents whose children have struggled to attend and said pretty much exactly to them and their young people what you've said in your post above. I've made phone calls and home visits, drafted support plans and made referrals, liaised with EWOs and provided attendance data to the local authority.

Sitting, desperate, 'on the other side of the desk', I find myself in a weird state of cognitive dissonance: I know all the reasons why my DC needs to be in school ‐they should be doing their GCSEs after all‐ but I can not get her there. For years, while young enough to cajole and coax, DC1 did have +97% attendance and we laboured with school and local authority to ensure learning differences were recognised and needs met as per EHCP.

Secondary school has proven quite a different kettle of fish. It has been said that a specialist placement would be more suitable, both in terms of academic attainment and environment, but with zero places in special schools available, we have elected to remain on roll at the local mainstream school rather than 'electively' home educate as ties with local authority support would then be severed. This has taken us down the scary rabbit hole of EBSA and into contact with all the services which I have previously referred other parents to. I'm immensely grateful they exist and are there to keep children and young people safe and on the radar when technically missing in education. But do you know what, all have said, after engaging with our 'case' (being someone's 'case' is alarming in itself) that they've nothing to offer us. They can see we're doing all we can, that DC1 is doing all she can.

So here we are. Not even started the academic year after 12 months of falling attendance. A stalemate with desperate parents, supportive school and a cash-strapped local authority. Our best advice came from CAMHS: stay in it for the long game, keep DC stable and safe, know all is not lost and that there will be options post-16.

@RockyRogue1001, you refer to the law as a blunt instrument. Yet there is provision in DfE attendance guidance for engaging with families whose children's SEN or mental health present barriers to attendance in a much more supportive and responsive way, recognising the individual needs and circumstances of the family as opposed to 'bluntly' pursuing them with fines.

You refer to 'my schools' so I assume you're either an EWO with a caseload of a cluster of schools or some kind of executive head or attendance lead of a MAT, in which case you know that absence for mental health reasons, such as anxiety, can (and should be) recorded as Illness and not as an unauthorised absence, and that parental observation and reporting ought to suffice and no medical evidence is required, eg families should not be required to request sick-notes from their DC's GP in the event of absence.

In cases where there is active parental engagement and evidence of ongoing involvement by external agencies and allied professionals (EP, EHCP, CAMHS etc), schools can assume that a family is trying very hard indeed to comply with attendance expectations and really lean in to support said families instead of referring them for fines and prosecution.

these attendance posters/drives do nothing to address the fact that a massive number of kids are being failed by our education system.

I’m starting to think that this approach deliberately ignores that fact.
If it’s addressed it’ll open up a huge can of worms that will need to be fixed.
SN children are the canaries in the mine, if they are falling in this system the whole thing is rotten.

This drives me mad. One of my dc have a serious illness, they miss several days a month for treatment (so obviously attendance isn't great). School are understandably fine about this.

However they are immunocompromised and I'm so tired of them being exposed to ill kids in school.i don't mean kids with sniffles, I mean kids who are obviously very unwell and should be a home in bed.

I'm also a teacher, and a parent of a child with EBSA. These posters do absolutely nothing to get those whose persistent absence is down to their parents into school and it just causes stress for those who are struggling to attend due to physical or mental health reasons.

I'll add that there's almost always an automatic assumption that a child's absence is the parent's fault. None of us are interested in our child's education - we're just crap parents who can't be bothered to get our children in.

The issue of safeguarding runs both ways. Many parents are keeping their children at home in order to safeguard them where schools have failed. The current stats on physical and verbal abuse, bullying, and sexual assault in schools does paint a pretty grim picture. It’s important that we are balanced and don’t pretend that many schools do not adhere to their own safeguarding policies.