100% attendance certificates at DS's school, aibu?

[BoobleBeep]

DS's school has just announced they will be giving out certificates to children with 100% attendance in an assembly at the end of term..... This basically excludes any child who has been ill at any point throught the year, needed dental treatment or has parents who can't afford to take them away during expensive term time. Aibu to be a bit pissed off about this?

I think attendance certificates are good, especially in schools which have low attendance.

As lots of socialists have been saying this week - it is not a race to the bottom. Let's value achievement and good things.

amerryscot, please explain how rewarding a primary aged child's attendance is rewarding their achievement.

"amerryscot, please explain how rewarding a primary aged child's attendance is rewarding their achievement."

I agree. DD had chicken pox twice when she was at primary school. Are you suggesting that I should have sent her to school when she was ill?

For some children, it's an achievement to get to school.

Eh?

How does that work then?

Which children, amerryscot?

The ones who are brought to school by their parents on time every day? Because they are the ones who are being rewarded.

The ones who struggle to get to school due to, for example, parental neglect are the ones who tend not to receive attendance awards.

I think it's an achievement for all children and their parents to get children to school each morning but that doesn't mean to say they should go when they're ill

It's not a race to the bottom, Tether.

My kids were, at one time, in a school with attendance records and they worked really well. They were done per semester, but it would be easy enough to do them by half-term here. It's not that much to ask of a child and parent to make sure their child is in school each day for 6 weeks. It will put the sniffly colds and late night DVDs into perspective.

It's no different from Golden Boot awards.

It is possible to tackle poor parenting via the child, especially if you have no guts to do it by cutting benefits.

But why should children who don't enjoy good health be penalised? The attendance record system merely rewards healthy children.

" It's not that much to ask of a child and parent to make sure their child is in school each day for 6 weeks"

Unless, say, they are in and out of hospital? What then. I think that actually it is quite a lot to ask for a lot of people.

They have this at DSS's school, they get vouchers too.

It means he goes in when he's sick. As in, vomiting outside the school gates sick.

Obviously I think this is wrong, but there's nothing I can do about it.

The whole think makes me .

"It's not a race to the bottom, Tether."

Please stop spouting meaningless rhetoric at me. This glib phrase does not apply to any of my arguments; I am guessing you just heard it somewhere and liked it.

Can you please answer one of my points? Any one will do- you can pick

"It's not that much to ask of a child and parent to make sure their child is in school each day for 6 weeks."

Err- you're asking a child to make sure their child is in school each day? Or the parent? Your point is a little confused...

"It is possible to tackle poor parenting via the child, especially if you have no guts to do it by cutting benefits."

No, it isn't. If you think this, you have clearly had no experience of really poor parenting. I'm going to ignore your laughable attempt to link this issue to benefits, as it is a straw man argument.

Tethers, my point was that many children do have an inflluence over how many days they have off. My own children have faked illness, not often, but they have done it. I didn't say a certificate would improve parenting, but it may encourage some children to be a little more stoic about tiny, minor, or non- existent health problems. Of course genuinely ill children should not be at school, and bad parenting should be dealt with as a separate issue. I don't see why the child can't be offered a 'carrot'. In our case it's the Local Authority who issues the certificates, not individual schools, and it's only a certificate. In fact, I don't particularly like the idea of big rewards like special events, but a little token seems okay. We won't agree, because I do think that children make choices about whether they go to school or not, and you seem to think they don't, but that's fine. We could agree to disagree. The parental income thing is a bit of a red herring though, because i don't think children have an influence over that. Although, education can be a route out of a low income life, and good attendance at school is one step towards higher academic achievement. I don't believe I made any suggestion that the purpose of giving a certificate was in order for a child to hassle a parent, so I don't get that last point. Perhaps that was directed at somebody else?

Good parenting involves knowing when your child is ill and when they are putting it on, encouraging them to be stoic etc.

It still comes back to the parents.

My 4 year old is certainly not going to be making choices about whether she goes to school or not.

Whatever, children do not decide whether or not they attend school, parents do; no matter what 'pressure' they have been put under by their child, or how determined the child is to go to school- the decision is the parent's.

To reward children for parents' actions is absurd.

The damage done by these certificates far, far outweighs the advantages of instilling misplaced stoicism in a small number of children.

We won't agree Tethers. It's fine. I'm all talked out now.

I don't understand what choice a 4yo has over whether they go to school or not

I'm not confused about anything, Tether.

Nor do I have 'lowest common denominator' bleeding heart liberal thinking.

Sickly kids, up to a point, have to recognise their condition. I see no point in penalising healthy kids.

The attendance problem in lots of schools is often down to over-protective parents who let their children stay off school for the tiniest niggle, or let them take a whole day off when they are having their braces tightened, or the day off after a DofE expedition. Perhaps they get the day off because their younger sibling is in a nativity play or their elder sibling has given birth. Sometimes mum is just lonely and she wants to keep her lovely DD at home. There are lots of non-medical reasons for absence - social reasons affecting all classes. And yes, it is the parents you need to get through to but there is the well known notion of 'pester power'.

The bottom line is that a student needs to be in school when their health permits. If a school has found a strategy that works, then good for them.

If you adopt a 6 sessions of counting attendance strategy, it will really only be the chronically ill who will not receive an award (but perhaps they could get a different one, for overcoming difficulties). The chickenpox, flu, D&V will just affect one attendance period.

I can't think of any days off my children have had in the last 5+ years. They don't get to take days off unless they are unable to keep their fluids where they belong.

DS1 got 100% attendance at the end of year 1 and DS2 (reception) got nothing.
When I questioned it I was told DS2 was late twice, we all go in the same car and arrive at the same time :-/

"Sickly kids, up to a point, have to recognise their condition"

So children with disabilities need to learn as early as possible that they will be excluded from things?

They already know that.
Hammering the point home with certificates seems a little callous.

"I can't think of any days off my children have had in the last 5+ years. They don't get to take days off unless they are unable to keep their fluids where they belong."

I am so happy for you that your children are never ill. it must be nice to be so smug about your children's health. What do you give your children to stopper them up?

DD had diarrhoea this week - a bug going around her school. There was no way I was going to send her to school. Last year she had suspected meningitis - she had a week off school.

Yes, they do.

"The attendance problem in lots of schools is often down to over-protective parents who let their children stay off school for the tiniest niggle"

If you think this, you are utterly, utterly deluded. Do you have any evidence of this? or (as I suspect) did you just make it up? Be honest, now

"Nor do I have 'lowest common denominator' bleeding heart liberal thinking."

Again, bizarre. Why do you assume that all objection to attendance awards is 'bleeding heart liberal'? You seem not to have read any of the arguments against the awards. Particularly claig's link form that well-known bleeding heart liberal rag the Daily Mail.

"If a school has found a strategy that works, then good for them."

Improving a school's attendance figures at any cost to the children is unacceptable.