to think if you receive a 100% attendance 'reward' your attendance should be 100%?

[BuckBuckMcFate]

DS1 is 15. He came home from school with a big grin and told me the school had given him £5 for 100% attendance. I'm a bit cats bum face about that in it's self, but then remembered that last term he was injured during Games which involved a trip to A&E and the following day off school. So he most definitely did not have 100% attendance. He said it worked out at 98.9% or some such figure so the school round it up.

AIBU to think that if the school are going to give out money(!) for 100% attendance the criteria should actually be 100% attendance? Obviously DS1, now £5 better off, disagrees with me...

Our school is harsh about it. Even if you are dying one day, you can't claim 100% attendance if you were off. I think that's right.

trois - I think you are right.I have a lung disorder - no chance of me winning any races at school. But i still think they should have sports prizes.

Really? Everywhere I have worked one of the questions on the return to work interview is "was this a workplace related injury?". If yes then the second question is "did you report this injury at the time?". If no then you are stuffed but if both answers are yes then as you say you can sue as your colleague rightly did.

I have to add this has been working in both private and public sector

Sports day is not the same though is it. Having an aptitude for sport and being rewarded for it is not the same as having an orthodontix appointment during school time and therefore losing an award. You can't help that you have wonky teeth, no amount of self improvement will change that. But practice at running will improve your ability so should be rewarded.

Exactly, Lizzie. And those children getting attendance awards are not getting them through any achievement of their own or special merit, only through sheer luck at being healthy. It's not comparable to sports awards or such.

Those saying it's the only award they ever get, well then it's not much of an award. There are plenty of ways to award children for their own efforts, whether talented or not, as a teacher you can find a way, believe me. But attendance awards aren't worth the paper they are written on imo. There are much better ways to promote work ethic.

My goodness, are schools so rich that they can afford to give money as rewards? Madness.

Lisie - A child reluctant to go to school who has a headache for example may be spurred on by 100% attendance award. So it might take some effort.

On the otherhand I was never going to win at sports day no matter how much I practicised as I have a lung disorder. Because I wasn't born healthy, sports prizes were unachievable for me. But I still believe dcs should have a chance to get a sports award.

I think as long as there is a wide range of prizes so everyone has some chnace then its fine. So sports, attendance, academic, most helpful, etc

Don't like attendance rewards, but if they're going to do them they should do them sensibly. So this seems a step in the right direction, not counting absences for things beyond students' control.

"Because I wasn't born healthy, sports prizes were unachievable for me."

At least you had an excuse.

We routinely have parents turn down NHS appointments because it will interfere with their children's attendance records .

"Rewarding" attendance encourages parents to send in ill children which can cause havoc to others who don't have the health to withstand some of the onlaught in viruses etc. It also encourages parents to avoid necessary health and hospital appointments.

In the real world, if you miss routine health care and work when you are too ill to do so, you are more likely to die prematurely.

I really don't get this.

Attendance is something children have little or no control over. It's a bit like rewarding someone for having a certain hair colour. It's even more bizarre at primary school age where the vast majority of the children can't even get to school without their parent's input, though at 15 I suppose it may be more valid since many of that age will be responsible for getting themselves to school.

I always find it completely at odds with the 48-hour rule following D&V bugs and the lines of 'if your child requires antibiotics we would ask you to consider if they really are well enough for school', etc or indeed a recent OFSTED recommendation which wants parents to keep their preschool/reception-aged DC at home if they have a heavy cold - Either our educational establishments are encouraging our DC to 'power through' illness or they're not, but make your minds up.

The purpose of attendance scores of course has no effect whatsoever on the very parents/children it was designed to impact - the habitual absentees (because, strangely enough, this tends to be down to either real disability, chronic illness or crap parents, none of which the child has any control over).

Wow, lots of responses.

I did wonder if the fact that the school didn't contact me about his injury and the first I knew of it was when his friend knocked on the door to say DS1 had tried to walk home and was unable to make it any further, had any bearing on him still receiving it

I don't agree with attendance rewards in general, the 48 hour rule re D&V means they can be perfectly well and still miss 2 days of school. It us a bugbear of mine when other parents don't follow the guidelines, as I have 4 DC and if one of them catches something, it's usually a certainty that the others will too.

Though DS1 has a new girlfriend, that he actually wants to do things with and an expensive hobby so I guess the cash incentive will stop him from trying to pull a fast one. If he was ill I would stop him from going regardless of the attendance reward.

The reason I posted was because I think if they are going to have an attendance reward scheme, they devalue it by letting pupils not having to attend 100% to still qualify.

I think genuine medical reasons should not affect attendance, if the child has attended every day they are well but has had an operation which meant 4 weeks off school then they have IMHO a better attendance than someone who went off to Spain for 2 weeks mid term.

I actually like it - but you could compromise with Raynard, Fox as a nn.

What sunshineandbooks said. I am totally meh about these attendance rewards. My kid is one of the genetically unlucky ones tho.

If I was to give 100% attendance rewards, I would excuse justified illnesses.
That's the fair thing to do because it's not the child's fault.

Yabu and the school isn't.

What an absolutely arbitrary thing to reward a child for - whether they have been ill or not in a given term, soomething over which they have no control. I can understand it it was an award for no unauthorised attendance.

It is like rewarding the kids who don't wear glasses.

Attendance awards are as arbitrary as sports awards. Some people are naturally healthy - some naturally sporty. As long as the school finds ways to recognise all achievements. I don't have an issue with it.
I must admit, that when we have medical appointments that come within school time, I make them go into school first and collect them in time for their appointments - then send them back to school afterwards. I know many mums who have a 10 minute Drs appointment and take the whole day off school.