To think there is far to much emphasis on school attendance

[Starwisher]

My dd1 is in year 1. I got a letter telling me off the other day as her attendance has only been 92% when it should be 95% to date. Apparently the educational welfare officer will be keeping a close eye on us...

For goodness sake, dd has been ill! They know this, yet I still get the letter.

Im sick of parents smugly telling me how they just "bung a bit of calpol in the kid and chuck them in school" so they dont need to miss out on the gym or shopping.

They are the one's getting everyone else ill and causing more problems so they can avoid a sick child, yet get rewarded with attendance certificates.

I try and do the right thing and stop dd spreading bugs and getting better at home- and get in trouble.

What is with OFSTED threatening to drop a schools rating if attendance is below some target figure? What if a particular nasty bug is doing the rounds- why should a school be penalised? (Another reason why OFSTED means nothing)

Im not saying attendance is not important but its becoming ridiculous!

And as stated up the thread several times the patents who are addicts/abusive etc will not give two hoots about a letter. I am not a social worker but I can't imagine the children of abusive parents can be served best by sending a letter to their parents I'd hazard a guess that it takes rather a lot more effort than that to change the behaviour of families like that.

At my DS's school, the Mums whose DC's have 100% attendance at the end of the year get a lovely bouquet of flowers (I kid you not).

Wow

bejeezus - spg1983's school manages to take a more individual approach.

What's wrong with trips abroad to visit family (if there's a reason why it can't be done during holidays)? Sounds a very good reason for a trip.

Yes, but with those parents a lot more effort is invested. It isnt just a disposable inconsequential letter for them...or even 1 visit from the education whosit. The letter is the first step in a series of steps. It seperates the ones that need further intevention from those that don't. Which is why it is no sweat

So basically the letter is a pointless exercise, well it only took 14 pages but we got there in the end.

vesela in our area there is a very very large immigrant population. It wouldn't be the odd family here and there as a 1 off. It has serious impact on a teachers ability to teach a class

As someone mentioned earlier, there is also the issue of forced arranged marriages of teenage girls. Also Muslim girls from some cultures, being taken to their country of origin for FGM purposes. I know our local achools are really vigilant in monitoring requests from these families if they have girls approaching puberty

So basically the letter is a pointless exercise, well it only took 14 pages but we got there in the end

No, it's a procedural point that needs to be done to identify potentially abused children that no genuine parent should be worried/stressed about.

That's not the conclusion I draw at all heswall

As I said very early on...the letter has raised attendance and awareness in my DS's school.

And long may it continue to do so.

There'll always be a random pearl clutching parent but if it works for the majority, then it's job done.

bejeezus, if there's a very large immigrant population then it's all the more important that the children get to see their families and spend some time in their other culture.

Forced marriage different issue.

YANBU and it makes me bloody furious.

I'm lucky that although I work my employers are very understanding and I have a full compliment of grandparents that can step in if DD (Y2) is unwell, but it's still enormously frustrating when other parents insist on sending in really poorly children who then spread whatever it is they're suffering from.

In the last 4 weeks, DD has 'brought home' D & V, a cold/cough and headlice.

There is a child in her class who she tells me has been sick 4 times at school in the last three weeks and although her parents have been called they don't bother coming in to pick her up, much less factoring in the 48 hours off after last bout of D & V guidelines.

I'm on the verge of having a word with her teacher about it tbh, but don't suppose there's a lot she can do.

Heswall I don't get your reasoning at all, you are not woken at the crack of dawn so that your dd won't be late - you are woken because your dd is showing signs of extreme anxiety which I really cannot believe is affecting all the other children who listened to the lateness lecture. It is not necessarily cause and effect, you know? It does sound like it needs addressing, though, very unhealthy for the poor girl.

vesela I suspect from your response that your area is not similar. The school would not be able to function if all families were given free reign. Are area is also severely short of school places. A school can't hold multiple places open for 3-6 months every year for them to visit family, whilst other kids are having to travel miles outside the area for school

I say this as someone married to an immigrant and a large family in Africa

Letters are the start of a necessary process that may end with just the one letter, or result in a multidisciplinary team being involved to help the child attend school more regularly.
They are not useless, just some people didn't agree with them

Forced marriage is not a different issue here at all. As earlier poster said school is crucial in picking up warning signs

And u know from discussions with health visitor, that BCP value schools in preventing FGM trips

So, to be honest, I don't care how many parents get 'upset' by these letters- if even 1 of those girls is saved

This thread has just become to weird and random for words.

In a nutshell, if you can honestly put your hand on your heart as a parent and say that you don't keep your kids off school when they're really able to attend...what's the problem?

Just bin the letter and carry on doing what you're doing as a responsible parent.

But for the love of God stop with the hysteria and 'duvet day' posts when kids get 12 or 13 weeks holiday per year to wrap themselves in a bloody duvet.

No one is advocating sending sick children to school spero

Really glad that up until a year ago the schools my kids attended were much more flexible than most of yours sound. Our elementary (primary) school actually encouraged us several times to pull our kids from school for a day or two when their grandparents were visiting so we could go to Disneyland with them because they felt that that was very valuable. They also allowed my older one to take weeks and weeks off 'on contract' (so technically not absent, but reduced money I think) so he could go out of state to train for his sport. He and I did a TON of math during that time, he had to complete all the work he would have done in class and send it in, plus they gave him extra in the subjects he was good at. They also gave us contracts so we could travel with the kids over the years, we went to Ireland, the Grand Canyon with my BIL and AZ with my parents to visit family. Each time the school/teacher said that they were going to learn so much by travelling and it would benefit their studies. I think it is a shame we don't value non-traditional learning more. We always tried to make sure to work it around school commitments as much as possible.

As for the 'nipping it in the bud' approach, I find it works for my non-asthmatic too. We do have a very strict 'lie down and rest during school hours' policy though, no TV. He usually gets over the bulk of colds in about 48hours. My DH is usually the only one who tries to soldier through and drug himself up and his mancolds outlast any of ours.

Duvet days are for adults at work

Are you saying you let your kids be wrapped in a duvet for 12-13 weeks

I wasn't implying they were bejeezus - just responding to/agreeing with the OP's comment:

I try and do the right thing and stop dd spreading bugs and getting better at home

i want to come back to the school causing anxiety thing a bit.

my ds is not an anxious sort of child - very confident etc but very keen on pleasing his teacher. he's 5. they had a system whereby if you were very good your name was on the smiley face, and so on down to the cloud - if you were really naughty you were on the cloud.

now ds, happy confident boy, not neurotic etc got himself into such a state over this thing - one day a child who wanted his own way said if you don't do x i'm going to tell miss that you did y. ds said no but then as he went in he saw this child going up to the teacher (they weren't going to tell but he thought they were) and got hysterical. the teacher spent the afternoon trying to work out what on earth was wrong but he wouldn't tell her. i got there and she had a quiet word to let me know and she looked really worried as to what had happened. i got the story eventually and it turned out the whole thing was a panic attack that he was going to go on the cloud!

i talked to the teacher the next day and apparently a few of them had had similar reactions and it was always the good kids who got totally freaked out by this behaviour chart whilst the kids who would end up on the cloud didn't give a toss. i suggested she have another talk about the cloud and ensure they all knew exactly what sort of thing would lead to the cloud and how many warnings they'd get etc etc so it wasn't so scary to the well behaved kids who were panicking that any little thing could get them on there which she did and he calmed down after that because she and i had made very clear to him what was really involved.

the latest thing is lateness - they've all been told they'll be made to wear a late sticker all day if they are late. they wouldn't use this strategy if the kids weren't horrified by the idea of having to wear this 'bad' sticker all day. they HATE the idea (or at least, again, the good kids who don't usually get in trouble and aren't immune to it) and the school presumably exploits that fear to pressure the parent via the child. i can well believe that some kids are panicking every morning about this damned late sticker even though they've never been late and even though it is absolutely out of their control anyway if their parent or childminder gets held up and is late for school. at which point a child is punished with a sticker (which to us would be funny but to them is genuinely shaming and they feel awful that they have gotten a bad sticker - when stickers usually mean they've done great and can feel proud).

so, yes ds is young so you can say that is different to the example of the 11 yo but schools are deliberately exploiting children's anxiety and fear, they rely on it for systems to work so you can't then scoff when it does work on children. and with it being indiscriminate in the threats that are made to the kids in assemblies and class etc kids who have no reason to worry, worry. and of course kids who already don't give a fuck, don't give a fuck.

Just coming back to this thread to explain myself a bit more clearly: dd did not develop suicidal thoughts because of a letter sent home, of course not. As several posters have pointed out, those letters are for the parents.

She developed severe anxiety from the measures taken after several letters had, mysteriously, failed to cure her condition. (A school that is obsessed with attendance is hardly likely to shrug their shoulders and give up if letters didn't do the trick.)

The measures taken included members of staff telling her, loudly and vocally, that they did not believe she was ill, interviews with EWO, visits from Social Services etc etc; in short, an array of adults in authority suggesting in her hearing that her poor attendance was her fault and that her life chances would be ruined by it. Not exactly a very cheering message for someone approaching their pre-teens.

I still don't understand why LEAs can't use the same method as universities and have special codes for special cases, people that are known to be particularly vulnerable when it comes to attendance. I get a list in my inbox at the start of every term with a separate code for separate disabilities/illnesses, so I know where I have to make allowances. The same code goes to the people organising the exams and to the exam board and is flagged up on the spread sheets so that any one person dealing with any one out of thousands of students, most of whom they have never met, can see at a glance if Special Case conditions apply.

See ds3 never gets high as since September he has had 12 sessions of hydro which means day of , then he has 6 weekly physio appointments so another 6 days , had a couple of orthopaedic appointments plus Ot yet more days of

Now has 2 week admission coming up so another 10 , he has Sn so school transport and set pick up and I don't drive so can't take him in either

Yet he has been lucky and only had 3 days of 2 due to sickness bug , one at schools suggestion as was completely exhausted

We still get standard letters and I now just chuck them in the bin