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. 😀

I don’t think anyone is debating the link between academic achievement and attendance at school.

Just the evidence that attendance awards do anything to help either one.

That's a data breach without explicit consent, plus is absolute bollocks. Sorry you work in a crap school with stupid approaches to student motivation.

Great. Let’s penalise children with chronic medical conditions.

It's awful. Wait until they have a family member who is seriously ill. Keeping people home when they're unwell means they recover quicker, are less likely to get permanent health issues (yes, even young fit people can get these after minor illnesses if they push themselves), class behaviour will be better so classes are safer, and means less absence overall because infections don't spread as much. Older children can easily do a couple of hours online, which is much easier than pushing themselves through a full day in school, and learn just as much.
Many offices tell people to stay home now, when they have colds.

@seahorsesskyI agree.

It’s interesting what you say about the pushing through bit. Isn’t that one of the main things those with long covid say they wish they’d known not to do in advance?

I’d certainly welcome lower (on paper) attendance to account for viruses and recovery, rather than higher attendance (on paper) but lower overall productivity across the class and teachers. There are much much wider benefits to this too.

It’s the thought of the friction and lack of empathy it would cause if one of their friends is genuinely unwell and can’t go in - can you imagine how annoyed they’ll be for ‘letting the team down’.

I work in an Outstanding school.
its not a data breach with consent.
Our students are proud of their successes, and so they should be.
We are over subscribed.
It wouldn’t suit you, I can see that.

Our kids love reward systems.
Plenty of different categories, not just attendance.

Our attendance rates are rated outstanding, even for pupils with chronic medical conditions.
Maybe we are just more resilient.
And of course there are pupils who are off sick, but a few days over a year is nothing.
We have type one diabetics with 100 % attendance.
Last year we had a pupil with stage 4 cancer, who wanted to sit her GCSEs She sat them at home and some exams took up to six hours.No one expected her to do this. When you see a pupil like this, it puts some parents attitude to shame.

A child being unable to attend because of a long term medical condition doesn’t mean they are less resilient .

Just because some with long term medical conditions are able to attend 100% of the time or close to that doesn’t mean all can.

Depends. I have 45 students with serious medical conditions. Most have great attendance.
Those who need to be off school for long periods have Hospital Ed and their attendance is put under a different code. No one is penalised for having a medical condition.

It doesn’t depend. How absences are coded is irrelevant to the fact that a child being unable to attend because of a long term medical condition doesn’t make them less resilient. It is also irrelevant to the fact that just because some with long term medical conditions are able to attend 100% of the time or close to that doesn’t mean all can.

In some schools, pupils are penalised and discriminated against for having a medical condition.

What on earth are you talking about. The 2 are not comparable. What a ridiculous post.

Not to mention that reasonable adjustments are actually available for A levels in terms of EAA.

It isn’t comparable though because with reasonable adjustments the attendance award could be attainable. For example, some schools make reasonable adjustments by not excluding a child from attendance awards/trips/points because of disability related absences and only looking at other absences.

Genuine medical conditions are marked as authorised.

Exactly this

Totally agree with you.
My kid got an attendance award last year. I didn’t make a big deal of it but he liked having the certificate and getting to go on the stage in assembly. But he would never get the handwriting award his class does each week, no matter how hard he tries. Afraid he takes after me there 🤣

Authorised absences are still classed as absences though, and some schools still exclude those with authorised absences from attendance awards even when they are because of medical conditions.

I disagree that with primary school attendance awards, you are actually recognising something particularly positive.

As I said upthread, my DD has 100% attendance, but last year on a Friday she was sent home with a vomiting bug. She was sent home mid afternoon, after registration, so it didn’t affect her attendance %. If she’d thrown up at school a couple of hours earlier, her attendance wouldn’t have been 100% because she’d have been sent home before the afternoon register. But nothing about her or her “resilience” or anything would have been different.

Not related to illness but I do recall hearing one child (I think in Year 2) bemoaning to their parent that their class would never get the "smallest number of lates" award as Jane was always late. I have no idea as to the circumstances that led to Jane being late and maybe it was just a question of the parent being disorganised and they could have got their act in gear, but it seemed very unfair that Jane should be the one incurring the class' wrath for something that was outside of their control.