Why would school refuse a call and insist on a meeting

[Insistingonit]

My dd is in year 5. Attendance hasn’t been good due to frequent illness. Once she got to 90% the school insisted on a GP appt to verify Illness each time which we did. We already supply the appt letters for appts in school time.

She is now at 88% . We have continued to provide proof of illness. They are insisting on speaking to us we agreed and said we will arrange a phone or video call. They said it has to be in person. Why? We are happy to discuss but don’t see the difference?

I was a teacher in charge of attendance. In my case , my boss said face to face meetings were to inconvenience parents. A sort of punishment. It punished me too because it takes a lot longer to organise and conduct a face to face meeting than a phone call or teams call. I got no PPAs or frees whatsoever. Also, the school refused to accept GP appointments and letters as evidence and would fine unless there was consultant level evidence (even though DFE says GP evidence is sufficient). It was a horrible job and meant I was in the firing line for parental vitriol. All this on top of huge teaching timetable. I took the post because I thought it was about coaching and helping families but in reality, they just wanted me to do the statutory meetings and then whack the fines and prosecution in. Over paid academy heads are desperate to keep their cushy posts and terrified that attendance will trigger an ofsted. It seems that promotion of good attendance has nothing to do with the wellbeing of children but everything to do with heads keeping their lucrative jobs. Education has become a corrupt business. For the record, good attendance is important but sometimes kids go through phases of illness. It’s up to you OP whether you fight it or go with the request for a face to face or not. It’s nothing to do with safeguarding. Teams meetings are conducted by many other professionals, are better for environment, more efficient, less stressful etc (have you tried parking in a school car park?) They are being awkward to punish you but be aware that the person you have to meet with, head of year for instance, is probably being bullied by the head, so be nice to them!

It’s not a “me” problem! I don’t provide the computer! Lots of schools are having to use old equipment, maybe the school OP is dealing with is one of them.

Once attendance drops below 90% I am instructed to arrange a face to face meeting by the LA Education Welfare service. Schools don’t decide what is and isn’t acceptable attendance - we just have to comply with the LA and DfE.

I’d expect any invitation to a meeting to state clearly who would be in attendance, and I wouldn’t be attending a meeting with 4 other professionals for absence that had been fully evidenced at the schools request. You can’t see that that would be both intimidating and heavy handed? For a parent who has done everything the school has asked for and a child who is experiencing unavoidable illness.

My DD had weekly appointments with CAMHS, her attendance was never above 90% because of these appointments and often lower by the time you add in usually childhood illness. If the school had tried to pull that kind of stunt I’d have told them where to go - but there was no need because her head teacher was sensible, compassions human being uninterested in stressing parents even further in the name of ticking a box.

I'd suggest if a family have been providing medical evidence way beyond what is required under government guidelines, and politely decline a f2f meeting at a time of your choosing, explaining why it is not possible and offering alternative times: you can forward the information back to the LA along with the teacher's report on how well the child is doing academically. Eventually it will land on the desk of someone with sufficient authority to apply common sense.

its not the parents problem either if your employer doesn’t provide the equipment needed to do your job effectively. Given how many meetings and training courses are provided online, how do you manage those?

It's not the parent fault if your role isn't properly resourced. IT access should be provided by your employer. Rather than expecting parents to have problems with their employer why not ask your employer to give you adequate equipment

What would you hope to be achieved by this if all absences have justified by gp? I’m sure mum herself is very concerned about her daughters illness’s and missing school, if she’s seen by gp and now back at school what would you be discussing?

Find it hard to believe any school has got all the way through COVID and still can't muster a single laptop with a camera. Which basically means not a single laptop, tablet device or anything else in the school as you can't get them without cameras.

They aren’t supposed to no. Do not book GP appts and waste NHS for this! The gov guidelines which you can find online specifically say this. I don’t understand what you meant when you said they sent her home then asked for proof?! I wouldn’t be entertaining this meeting or any of this

I didn't say it was the parents' fault. Clearly you know nothing about school budgets.

I’ve never met a teacher who doesn’t have Teams on their laptop. It’s how they all do parents evening!

What makes me laugh is all the time they were off during Covid and parents were told to chill and they won’t miss much then you have this happening with a child attending 90% of the time

Yes punished by school is definitely how it felt as a parent.
In our case our child was extremely unwell evidence at consultant level. But the school treated us awful. The attendance letters. The meetings and comments about attendance equalling achievement and how child was falling further behind each day they were off.

It's like they were unable to understand we were dealing with awful uncertainty and worried to death over the child health but rather than understanding and support they went with twisting the knife and causing stress at a time when our only focus should have been our child.

Incidentally, when child was recovering and should have been provided with medical tuition the school and LA provided nothing. When they were well enough for school they provided hone of the extra support the child needed.

They only cared about the attendance mark not the child and not the family.

Well, some schools don’t seem to know anything about the demands and restrictions working parents have so fair’s fair…

No sorry it was the only time they didn’t want proof was when they saw her vomit and sent her home, the other 2 episodes of d and v I had to obtain proof from the gp

It does not need verifying by anyone. Are they saying you’re not capable of reading a thermometer? How did you even get an appt for that!

How do you improve sickness?

And clearly you know nothing about household budgets and the impact of having to take unpaid leave.
Unpaid as in you don't get paid ie income is reduced but you are still expected to pay bills and feed your household.
As a parent of a child who missed school frequently due to health. The parent already will.have reduced income having to take time off to look after their unwell child. You are expecting them to take further unpaid leave because you are unwill to arrange meeting outside of parent work hours or borrow a computer from a colleague for an online meeting.
Also even if your camera doesn't work I assume you have a computer your can video call.in and see the parents. You would just need to explain you can't be seen as no camera. Or does the mic not work either?
And telephone? School doesn't allow you to use the school phone?

I had to ask for an appt for a general check upto see if it was bacterial or viral tonsillitis on one occasion and another to check if a bad cold with a hacking cough was viral or chest infection and as part of the appt they checked temperature as I said school needed that verified . We had to use the pharmacy scheme a couple of times too for ear infection and I had to get a stamped notification of attendance and show the medication to school as the GP directed us to the pharmacy first scheme

They did all that at the Parents evening the OP attended, when they told her how well her child was doing.

I see. Well if it doesn’t need GP input then next time you don’t need to worry. Tell the school to follow the guidelines

Goodness I just email my school and it’s done. One year my daughter attendance went to about 90% but they were the ones sending her home sometimes. It’s not uncommon to get a bad run of bugs. Once we even got a letter saying so many staff were off sick they were having to get supply in and they were glad it was the holidays soon for a reset!

Yes because GPs want you to bring a child with D&V in …..! Honestly that’s ridiculous

I think one of the biggest indicators of outcomes for children is how engaged their parents are.

The school want to engage you. Finding a way to make this appointment work will show the school that you are engaged enough to take time off work, which is a good sign for the wellbeing of your child.

Parents who fight schools on a request to speak to them in person could also be very engaged or they could be unwilling to support their child. How can the school know which? They just need to try with each child and in this case below 90% attendance without a known health issue can, on the face of it, be something to concern them a bit.

If there are financial issues involved then perhaps you could ask if they can visit you instead?

They wouldn’t see her they added a note the first time to her record that I could send in and the second time they arranged for a stool sample due to 3 episodes of d and v and that was allowed as proof as I could show we had consulted them and had some testing done

Well I guess if they have a video call with the OP they will find out.