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?

They said malicious. I haven't engaged in any other conversation on any other topic about a report, other than it objectively isn't malicious from the person who they directed it at.

I haven’t heard back from them so I’ll have to wait and see hopefully they see sense.

A support plan can't prevent chicken pox or vomiting bugs. Of course it feels like a punitive measure when genuine medical/health reasons apply and not all schools act like this when medical/health reasons apply. My son also has poor attendance for genuine reasons and it would get my back up if his school acted in this manner.

OP also isn't refusing a meeting, she simply can't take more time off work and is asking for a video call instead.

It could be considered malicious, in the absence of any evidence to support the concern. Any competent safeguarding lead would know the threshold for referral to social work, which isn’t that otherwise engaged parents have asked for an alternative format for their meeting. So either the lead is incompetent or the referral is malicious, take your pick.

An attendance agreement is basically parents agreeing that attendance will improve. The parents can't agree this because they don't know. Either child health will be better and attendance will improve or it won't. They can't influence this but signing to say they can is very risky

If you have 'genuine' concerns you should be raising concerns regardless

I'm still waiting for anyone to tell me exactly what they think SS would think of any safeguarding report in this case... other than laughing them out of the room for wasting their time.

I that’s exactly what they would do, there’s no way the school will report this

Schools can accept that a doctor knows more than they do about a child's illness.

Yes ok maybe sometimes a doctor is in league with an abusive parent but really how often does that happen?

And how would the school assess abuse at a meeting with no child present?

Schools are in the difficult position of being regulated in a sector where parents and carers question how things should be done, understandably, because school impinges on family life. Financial services organisstions are in a much easier position as customers tend not to question the rules.

Where does ofsted say anything about getting parents to f2f meetings? Genuine question, everything I've seen has been about working with children and families' individual circumstances.

And actually, you try being the bank who demands customers turn up to f2f meetings in the middle of their working day. a) you'll haemorrhage customers as in financial services unlike with schools customers have real choice, and b) you may find customers complaining to the regulator about you themselves under the fair treatment of customers requirement that you do not create unreasonable barriers to accessing their services.

Simply would not happen. Financial service companies care a great deal about customer approval ratings. If they want to meet you, you'll be able to arrange a time to suit your other commitments, and there will almost always be an online option available. (Indeed, sometimes it's hard to get anything but online.)

Obviously they can see you at drop off, why not offer to chat before drop off? Or whenever you can actually make it.
Trying to get you to sign a contract effectively saying that you'll prevent DD from having illnesses, or just send her in with them no matter what they are, is ludicrous. And that's what the attendance contract would be, since that's the reason for the absences. How ridiculous.

Funny you should own up to being a social worker Harry, because in my recollection of a lot of the horrific child abuse cases going back to Maria Caldwell ( yes I am that old) social workers often didn’t recognise the very clear signs of abuse , or refused to take action , or believed the parents protestations that the child had “fallen” etc etc.

I am really glad that teachers are trying to be more proactive in supporting children, are recognising their roles and responsibilities, and providing a safety net to potentially catch abused children. Yes, some parents will be inconvenienced, so what?

The problem is if schools make referrals for children who have documented illness causing absences and where there is no red flags of abuse rather than the children who show many red flags then the children actually at risk continue to be missed while the families of the children not at risk jump through stupid hoops that not only doesn't help their child, won't improve attendance as illness can't be magically stopped and cause no end of problems for the family.

But yes this harassing innocent families may help your Ofsted grade. God forbid education was actually about education

I still don't understand how a face to face meeting to discuss an attendance contract without the child present is magically going to catch any potential child abuse.

Especially considering there was a recent parents evening which OP attended, medical evidence has been provided and OP does drop offs and pick ups.

It isn't about inconvenience, it's about the fact that OP can't take any more time off work because she needs to be sure she can feed and house her child.

Where are the red flags here? The child has had a lot of illness over a short period of time. The parents are engaging with health service, as documented by the evidence the school have requested, the parents are pressing health services to explore any underlying issues. The child is achieving academically, the parents were met at a recent parents evening where no concerns were raised. The parents are visible in the school community at drop off and pick up.

Taking social work resources to act as school enforcement officers takes resources away from children who really do need support and protection. It doesn’t keep children safe, or even improve attendance because if the child is sick they’re sick.

And being a social worker isn’t something to “own up to”, it’s a demanding profession which takes training, skill and experience. Something to be proud of, I’d think.

Why is it funny to own up to be a social worker, and why is it something to own up to? You’ve no idea what the role involves daily and the endless and exhausting work that goes into child protection. No one sees or talks about the success stories only when things go wrong. This is not a safeguarding issue, the child has been ill which has been confirmed by gp, the child is now back at school. A meeting in person with the parent doesn’t assess anything else when they have a legitimate reason as to why it’s not suitable for them.

They have agreed to an online meeting

That's great news.

Common sense prevails. Hope there is something constructive to come out of it. Maybe to enter into the spirit of the thing you could ask them to make sure they're being strict with other children complying with the 48 hour rule so yours doesn't keep catching sick bugs 😂 after all there's not much can be done about tonsillitis, which is known to recur until you reach the frequency the doctors will consider removing tonsils.

I hope some of the more dramatic posters on the thread are feeling a bit silly now.

Ofsted doesn't say anything about f2f meetings. Ofsted inspects. It doesn't make proscriptions about how things should be done. I agree a video meeting seems sensible. What we don't know is why the school has asked for a f2f meeting. Several posters have made suggestions about this. Perhaps the school needs to update its processes to allow video meetings.

I haven't been as clear as I could have been about banks. I didn't have meetings in mind when making comparisons with schools. An example of what I did have in mind is, say, a bank requesting two pieces of ID. Few people would intervene and say they would produce just one and that a passport alone did the job. Yet some parents intervene over a whole range of things when it comes to schools: detentions are stupid so my child's not going, these children were given an award and my child should be too, do a nativity play and not a seasonal celebration, my child should be in set 1, my child didn't deserve to be told off, children shouldn't be in the yard when It's very cold, I don't want my child sitting next to x, I don't agree with homework for y2 so my child's not doing it, my child should be allowed to go on the school trip to NYC even though they bolted during a one-day trip in the UK (a real MN example) etc etc. Teachers and heads are not respected for their professional knowledge in the same way as lawyers or bank employees and a host of other professions.

Typo

Great result. Have they explained why the change of heart?

Apparently the attendance lead spoke to the HT who said an online meeting is absolutely fine. I’m not against it as maybe they can help increasing hand washing in school /cleaning the classroom more often etc I was just against the insistence of a meeting that would inconvenience us with work and didn’t seem useful and also the attendance contract but I don’t think they’ll be pushing that now. Hopefully things will improve naturally with better weather and less bugs.

Banks have statutory responsibilities that can easily be checked, they offer a service and if I’m not happy I can go elsewhere.

Schools are much less transparent - with school policy too often being presented as law. How many posters ask how to “ask” the school if their child can be out of school for whatever activity, or in this case a perfectly reasonable request being touted as a safeguarding issue. If the school can so easily revert to an online meeting, why did they not just do it without fuss? Or the insistence on medical evidence contrary to guidance? If education professionals want respect, they need to be respectful and not treat the school like their personal fiefdom.

Wonderful. Let's hope common sense continues to prevail. You may want to reference the Gov guidance on ventilation (previously posted), London now has a number of schools being fitted with HEPA filters which clean the air as studies show improved health (germs & pollution) and learning outcomes. Hope GP can give you some answers too so your child's health improves. Best of luck.