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?

Good points, the OP could also flag to the school that their infection control policies could be lacking and this may have to be referred to the local authority,

Then that's your answer: you can do a quick meeting, but only just before drop off time or at pick up time if they want to see you in person. Offer them days, in writing, with those times to choose from. Re-iterate in that writing that you have provided all requested evidence of illness from medical practitioners and the meeting will change nothing about your child's particularly trying time this year with illness.

Exactly. Imagine the uproar if a child's attendance wad dropping because of neglect and the school did nothing about it.

Have you explained to them that you are struggling to get more time off work? They may be able to work around it

Of course not, but there may be options not considered so far eg work being sent home so DC doesn't fall further behind, coming to school at lunchtime so a half day rather than a whole day's absence is recorded.

You drop her off at school and collect her? Why not arrange around these hours.

For whatever reason they have concerns and it isn't your decision to to decide those concerns are not valid. If you don't agree with the school leadership find another school otherwise work with it.

Which is a good thing! It's safeguarding. People are very quick to blame schools if something awful happens. They are part of the child protection environment. The vast majority of people affected by these type interviews/interventions are perfectly able, loving but there are some aren't and some may need support.

They can feel it's a cause for concern as much as they like, they can do fuck alll about it. This would not come remotely near justifying formal attendance procedures, given that they have all the necessary evidence. If they really need to see OP in person, they can do it outside her working hours.

If a child has D&V or chicken pox they can’t come in at lunchtime.

Work being done at home won’t improve attendance.

So I ask again, how does the school “win” in this situation and how does that “win” benefit the child?

We had this issue with DD at high school she had had a bad year with being ill regularly. We did attend an in person meeting with school, but we actually refused to provide GP evidence every time she was ill. Why because she was ill with things the GP didn't need to see her for, mainly bad colds which had made her ill enough to have days off. We refused to waste GP time and appointments on this and told the school they needed to trust us as parents. Because we went in and spoke to them directly they where actually happy to accept this.

I think the communication with the school is probably more important then providing the medical evidence.

Exactly the issue. As teachers we had two juggle absence and so then asking for more time off to go to a meeting that could be a phone call would not be popular. I can’t see what needs to be done in a meeting that couldn’t be done in a phone call, they have seen the child and have records from the gp about what they are off.

Then say you can go in early with your daughter one morning and do the meeting at that time.

The original ideas and principles that led to "safe-guarding" rules being put in place had the child"s interests at heart but some over-stepping box ticking nutter at a local school might just be full of their own self-importance?

Although they did agree to see us outside of school hours, so if you are doing pickups why not ask for a meeting after.

But what is the safeguarding issue?

Absolutely not ! This is bullying plain and simple. There is absolutely no appropriate reason for them to insist on a face2 face meeting . Especially because the consequences of you being absent from work again are a huge deal more than jumping through some OFSTED hoop. !

If you weren’t seen at drop off or pick up.. if your daughter has displayed changing or worrying behaviour issues. If the absences were undocumented.. then perhaps the safeguarding protocol to check on the parents would be relevant but it isn’t.

Those who say just do it to get them off your back are obviously happy to be pushed around or SAHP’s with time for this type of nonsense.

@Italiandreams

People love to talk about ‘safeguarding’ like it’s some kind of trump card.

Here the OP has nothing to worry about. He child has had illness verified by the doctor, school has seen the child has been unwell, the child has made no disclosures of concern and had been acting normally.

There is nothing of concern that needs a face to face meeting, and if in fact there are genuine concerns it’s not for the school to investigate themselves. They make referral if they suspect harm.

There is nothing here except their stupid attendance stats.

No one on this thread has the facts, only what the Op is telling us. The school are asking for a f2f mertimg and they usually don't have vast amounts of time to attend unnecessary meetings.

Yes schools can be over zealous but equally they have the legal responsibility for safe guarding and it's hardly unreasonable to arrange a meeting around drop off or pick ups.

They want to see the state of you as well. They want to see the state of your appearance, your body language, your tone. They want to slow down the conversation and get a deeper understanding of what is going on.

Refusal, being evasive, rude and generally not taking it seriously will only escalate the issue with the school.

I've said what I want to say to you, other than this: if I were the parent of a child with 88% attendance, I would be concerned about my child's health and that they would be struggling to keep up with school work. I would therefore welcome the meeting for the benefit it could bring for my child, recognising that the school may have new insights I couldn't provide.

Yes, but there are letters from a GP, the school knows why the child has been off, the OP should be questioning the school on their infection control procedures, I would argue that pressuring parents/children to "get their attendance up" is more about box ticking for the school and actually spreads infection, when you are ill you are ill whether it is work or school, schools and employers just need to suck it up, there are some very nasty strains of infection going round at the minute, have we learned no lessons from Covid?

Let’s also be realistic about what 90% attendance actually IS - 19 days across a full school year.

Yes, it’s a lot but it happens very easily with some bad luck. At this point in the year it’s 8 days which can happen with a bout of d&v and two nasty colds.

My youngest son had a whole week off with a bowel impaction. I’m not sure what ‘support’ could’ve got him back to school any sooner?!

Some kids like adults get sick more frequently - it’s a fact of life - we can’t scare people well 🙄

What is your line of work?
Assuming in this situation that your work attendance would also be 88%, would they be supportive of you taking off additional hours to have meetings about your daughter having time off?

It’s nonsensical and a box ticking exercise.

If there were concerns about safeguarding, a in school meeting with the parents would be a fart in a hurricane.

I’d bet money on there being mention of attendance improvements on their recent ofsted report or their vision and values.

Averaging over one day absent per fortnight is a lot. Getting repeatedly ill to the extent you can't go to school , for over 6 months, would be a real worry and she must have missed such a lot of learning now. I don't understand why you wouldnt be the one asking for a meeting to discuss the impact on DD and what you and school can do together to minimise it, especially if this level of absence continues.
Can you really not see that face to face meetings are easier to have discussions, especially when it's more than two people in the conversation?

Safeguarding- has a GP seen your dd each absence, or have some of the diagnoses and treatments been remote?

There will be no insights that you couldn't provide, believe me. Especially if your child has been genuinely unwell and you've had to waste GP and NHS precious appointment time repeatedly to 'prove' it. Which I wouldn't be doing, personally.

These meetings are box ticking exercises because of the immense pressure SLT is under to keep attendance above 95%.

"Work with the school to improve her attendance"

"Bend over backwards to help the school with her attendance"

"Get her attendance back on track"

What is the OP supposed to do when every absence has been due to genuine gp-verified illness?

How is an in-person meeting going to improve her attendance due to being ill? Is she magically going to become immune to every virus and bug going about after going to this meeting?

OP you really shouldnt have let your child catch chicken pox (probably contracted in school) and you shouldnt have kept her off with diahorreah and vomiting (despite keeping them off for 48hours from last episode literally being school policy)

I dont the school being arsey about this needing to be in person in a case that is clearly genuine, and I seriously dont get the posters getting on like you need an intervention as if you're keeping your daughter off for the craic and the cost of yourself also being able to go to work!