School won’t authorise absence for illness

[G172125]

Looking for some advice. My Daughter is off school with chicken pox and will probably be off for most of the week. The school are requesting medical evidence before they will authorise the absence. I have sent a photo of my child showing her spots but they said I needed to go to a chemist and get them to give me some calamine lotion with her name and a date on it. I’ve been to three chemists and they have all said they don’t provide proof and are fed up of schools sending parents to them. They said it would be going against nhs advice to put calamine lotion on chicken pox and they won’t print a label for me to stick on the bottle if I buy some. Her Gp won’t provide a sick note or appointment. Her attendance is at 97%. She was sent home in September and also just before half term with a sickness bug both were marked as unauthorised even though she was sent home from school vomiting. Who can I complain to about this? She is only on day two of chicken pox so will definitely be off most of the week and I want to avoid getting a fine that I can’t afford at the minute.

If it’s secondary school I see why they might not believe you as most kids have had chicken pox young, I’d have been thinking why has this kid not had the vaccine if she’s not had it young? Seems odd of them to be so strict about it. Tell them she’s never had it and it’s quite serious and can be quite severe in teens and adults and to stop being idiots.

It matters insofar as her illness is being incorrectly recorded on the system as unauthorised absence…presumably code ‘o’ when it should be recorded as code ‘I’ for illness. Schools have a legal requirement to record the reason for absence accurately.

Schools are not supposed to decide unilaterally that an absence is unauthorised when it has been reported by a parent as illness. Code ‘I’ is always classed as an authorised absence. The only caveat to that would be if there were reasonable evidence to suggest a fraudulent claim of illness, which is not the case here. The OP has even sent photos.

Someone assessing the number of absences a child has had would only look at the code recorded by the school - the fact that this isn’t a holiday but a school deciding they want a medical note, wouldn’t be captured in the register code, so this really needs addressing.

Honestly what a palaver, I’m sorry you had to go through that. I work in a school and I do the attendance. I’m glad you got it sorted but would advise you to put in a complaint to the headteacher (and I never advise complaining usually!)

If a parent reports illness it has to go down as I and be authorised, unless they have serious reason to believe you are actually on holiday somewhere. They can’t fine you. These stringent policies are really unfair on everyone.

Of course it isn’t. Schools don’t get the money from fines.

Yup. I was at school during the 80s and had loads of time off. My mum wasn’t too fussed about me going every day. She wrote me a note when I returned to school and no one batted an eyelid.

This obsession with attendance is ridiculous. I don’t believe that the long term educational impact is much different between 85 and 98 per cent attendance tbh.

In our local area, the council have declared what can be authorised as illness and what can't. For example period pains cannot

@bendmeoverbackwards attendance is far more tightly Linked in with safeguarding these days. I think it's a result of the Victoria Cilimbe case. Things have changed since the 1980s!

It's 10 separate absences not for the same one.

No it's not

Like some pp have said it can be really serious, my dd was hospitalised with it and a mum at her school at the time was too. They caught it from a child who was ‘fine’ and went to school before spots were crusted over.

It's also goes against the safeguarding guidance around neglect. If a child is very ill, sending them into school for the school's attendance stats is surely neglect? Where's the safeguarding there?

And yes to PP talking about how stressful all this is for parents having to jump through hoops or go to court - what about parental mental health? That impacts on children too. I know someone who's homeschooling because her daughter has a medical condition that means she needs a lot of time in hospital. The school kept on at her about attendance, despite absolutely loads of medical evidence, eventually threatened her with social services. Now, at most they would have visited and found a well-cared for child (most likely they wouldn't have wasted their valuable time) but in the end she just de-registered her child and is homeschooling because the stress of the constant battle with the school was so draining and also she got to the point she didn't trust the school to send her child home if truly unwell which could have been very serious.

There is no evidence base for the 97% attendance target. I asked my GP about it once and he said among generally fit and healthy children, some of them will be ill enough with enough viruses per year to go below the 97%. He said some people get iller with viruses than others and as long as they were recovering in 10 days to 2 weeks from most bugs then he wouldn't consider it unusual (this is when my DD caught everything going one year post Covid).

It's also goes against the safeguarding guidance around neglect. If a child is very ill, sending them into school for the school's attendance stats is surely neglect? Where's the safeguarding there?

what’s the school going to do? Call social services to report safe guarding concern of parent sending in sick child due to draconian school system of unauthorised absence

The doctors or consultants could when parents send to school against medical advise (due to pressure from the school) and child conditions worsens

But even if no one raises a safeguarding concerns the fact children physical health and mental health (and that of the parents) is suffering due to school harassment over attendance

This is absurd. My year 6 DD also has very severe chicken pox at the moment - I emailed school/ head at the weekend and she instantly replied. No questions asked and no évidence required, despite my DD having a run of illness and terrible absence this year (at one point 50,%) - just sympathy for her bad luck. The woman is a saint though tbf! Can the GP give you a note.vi might be tempted to present her at the gate to make a point. But if it was my DD. She doesn't want to leave the house due to way she looks - she is 11 1/2 though so pretty self conscious. Good luck - never Realised chicken pox could be so brutal!

This is shocking

Each half day is 1 absence, so 5 days would be 10 absences, which is why they fine parents for taking kids out of school for a week.

This is exactly right. One day marked as unauthorised counts as 2 unauthorised absences, so 4 more days of unauthorised absence would bring you into fine territory.

I fight every unauthorised absence my son gets and luckily school haven’t given him
any this year as they have accepted my reasoning when he has been off.

Never once have my kids been off school for a holiday or family occasion. My eldest is in sixth form and hasn’t missed a day since she started in reception. We asked sixth form to let her spend work experience week at home revising for an important university entrance exam and they were reluctant - the Head asked me how he would know we weren’t off on a family holiday - I said because her younger sister will be in every day! I was quite offended when he made that comment. My eldest has never missed a single day and is so conscientious - to make such a stupid, flippant comment about her and me was really inappropriate. She felt comfortably missing wex week as she had already done a week in her half term, selected specifically not to miss any school!

Thats discrimination Hope they have a bit of money put aside.

Send a letter telling them what the pharmacists said, ask them to show you in the school rules that you should get proof of illness this way,and ask about the legal basis is for fining you?- a GP will provide a note but it costs money.What on earth is an unauthorised session?lt sounds like a contractual thing,check your paperwork from when your child started the school,sounds pretty unreasonable to me.

So glad to hear this! Your poor daughter having chickenpox in year 7! That must be so unpleasant for her. Hope she feels better soon. Thank you for keeping her off! It really helps everyone else who might be vulnerable in the school.

I think you should badger them about the sent home and then marked unauthorised. This is unfair to your daughter and I think it’s reflective of why they haven’t had good Ofsted. Ofsted love a good policy and procedure! It sounds like they are trying so hard to be thorough but also making it up as they go along or basing it on hearsay. Good luck!

In our local area, the council have declared what can be authorised as illness and what can't. For example period pains cannot Why am I not surprised?

Because unless there are medical issue and you're under the team at the hospital, they can be solved largely by painkillers

Touchingly optimistic to imagine that teenage girls with a medical issue relating to periods will be under a team at a hospital.

How quick do you think a young girl with issues will be seen by a specialist?

Before they are seen they will have suffered for a long time with the GP /nurse advising a wait and see approach

At the point where the GP refers to a consultant they could already have been struggling for over a year. They then face likely a year wait to be seen.

If painkillers were sufficient - they likely aren't off school in the first place.

Excessive Period blood loss can trigger anemia

Girls may have issues with severe flooding - alongside many schools not allowing toilet breaks and not enough time to clean up during break due to so many girls using the facilities, this is also a major concern for girls with heavy periods.

Huge clots / womb lining passing can be so painful. Decidual cast is when the whole womb lining is past in one piece. This is rare but some girls will have this. The pain this causes is like being in labour as the body tries to expell the lining

Period issues can range from extremely mild to extreme - a blanket ban on authorised absences for period related issues is barbaric and will unfairly impact one gender only

Calamine lotion hasn’t been recommended for chicken pox in years - mine has it 12 years ago and it wasn’t even recommended then! What nonsense from the school. Although it makes no real difference in the long run whether it’s recorded as authorised or not so I don’t think I’d bother escalating it