Attendance awards

[Itsfridayatlast]

DD has come home pleased that their house has won the attendance award this week. “We were lucky no one was ill”. She wasn’t joking. 😀

Assuming genuine illnesses are broadly spread evenly it stands to reason that higher instances of absence are probably more genuine so no harm in rewarding those who attend on all days they can.

Far too many miss school because of holidays, poor parenting and other non essential reasons. It is good for children to learn that absence for genuine illness should be the only reason not to attend.

Attendance awards are bollocks.
We always refused any personal certificates, and just told the kids to ignore the messaging.

It is good for children to learn that absence for genuine illness should be the only reason not to attend.
Or bereavement.
Or important non-educational event.
Or other educational activity.
Or appointment.

Other than bereavements which by their very nature are going to be few are far between the other 3 are just excuses to take time off.

Important non-educational event is very subjective.

Other educational activity sounds like you want to use school part time. Either commit or don’t join in the first place.

Appointments should be made outside of school hours unless completely unavoidable and then in the vast majority of cases you only need an hour or so away from school not a whole day off.

The correlation between attendance caused by anything other than genuine illness and quality of parenting is stark.

I dislike them. They shouldn't be a thing. At all. It's young children.

They wouldn’t exist if it wasn’t for poor parenting.

The school my DS attends has never had them but also doesn’t have an absence problem.

What?!
my DD has chronic illness so never had or has 100% attendance
I hate these awards as kids have very little
control over it

It's not really possible to make hospital appointments out of school hours.
My daughter has 4 hospital appointments coming up. 1 is at a hospital 40 miles away from school, the other 3 it's 60 miles. I can't pick and choose when they happen.
Attendance awards have upset her for years. You are forgetting about the substantial number of kids with long term health issues.

You still are marked as absent for health related absence
its just authorised by the school
so my DD’s hospital appts which take hours are absences

I saw a year 11 today who told me he had not had a single day off since he started secondary school. After he left I checked his record and yes he was correct. Now that is something that is flipping amazing.

Don’t misunderstand me, I think they’re a load of bollocks too. I understand why some schools do them, but it’s more to be seen to be doing something about attendance, than actually having any real merit. I think they can be harmful if anything as a lot of absence is outside some people’s control.

It was just interesting to hear her say it so matter of factly and struck home the message kids actually receive, which I can’t really argue with. She just sees attendance awards as luck, in the same way as a teacher might pick a name out of a hat. Her attendance is good, but she’s healthy but has had a fair few horrible viruses in the school holidays. I’d be happy if the awards were scrapped, even though they don’t affect us, as I don’t think penalising misfortune is a good thing.