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!

Some parents do keep their children off school at the drop of a hat though, and those are the parents that are being targeted with this letter.

It does have an effect on children when they are frequently off school, and while in Y1 is easy to know that they will catch up and their long term education won't be affected, it does have an effect on the short term. Children dont like it when they have missed out on making doing or something in particular.

On the other handl, some parents send their children in to school when they really shouldn't, and IMO, that's worse because it affects others.

If you know you are justified in keeping your dd off as much as you have, then ignore the letter.

"and those are the parents that are being targeted with this letter. "

I don't think you can say it is "targeting" a particular group when everyone receives the standard letter regardless of reasons for abscence.

cory your DD has had an unhappy experience with all sorts of unacceptable consequences but since the OP has not mentioned disability or chronic illness we have to assume her DC's illness is general coughs/ colds/ tummy bugs. IMO 3 weeks a year is quite a bit of missed school.

I pay for my child's education and yes i do keep them off if they aren't well and for duvet days if they are tired.
If they miss something important the teacher sends it home or the child does after lunch, no big deal tbh.

That's the way schools do things though. It's like when the headlice letter comes out. It gets sent to everyone even though the school staff know that it's the same one child that keeps coming in with headlice. It's bad practice apparently to single families out.

I got an email about lateness from ds's secondary school, it was mainly about morning lateness rather than during the day, but it was la generic email that was sent to all parents. Dh drops ds at school every morning, and he has never once been late!

Dd1 had to have a whole half term off school in the middle of year 9 due to complications after an emergency appendix op. Two weeks into the start of year 10 we received a postcard from the school saying "Well Done dd1! You have 100% attendance so far this year. Keep it up!"

Can I also add that my DS school even counts school residential trips away as absences.

In his first year - year 7 - he had been ill with bad tonsilitis just prior to the residential trip. He went on the trip laden down with antibiotics and managed okay. On his return after a day back at school he was off ill again. So at the end of the Autumn Term -I received a letter saying that his attendance was ?? can't remeber just now - but lower than they liked. I added up his sick days - and calculated the percentage. When I spoke to school they said but there were also those three days on the school trip?

So howis that fair? To all intents and purposes he was at school. Almost all of the year group attended - that was the point of the trip - to get to know each other as new starters at a new school!

Schools seem to Target the wrong people about this ime 92% isnt really that low is it
, MY eldest dd was seen as absent because she had orthodontist appointments every 2 weeks for a year the headmaster spoke to her about it sigh Although i dont think these mums bung calpol into children so they can go to the gym yabu about that , children can go to school with a cold or a runny nose , we cant keep them off for every sniffle , I would say to the schol she was ill let them monitor it and dont worry about it nothing is going to happen to you or your DD

I used to be a teacher and worked in a school in a 'deprived' area where some sort of attendance worker used to come to the school every week, get a list of names from the secretary of who had been off for a day or more the previous week, then take them out of lessons to do some work with them. The kids I taught were only Reception aged, so it was more colouring in and a bit of a chat than work, but anyway. Plus then the kids got letters etc to take home about attendance.

One day she came in and said 'I need Sam, Amy and Sophie.' I said, 'oh no, Sophie won't need to go. She's never been off before but last week was in hospital all week with a potentially life threatening illness.' I was told the rules were the rules and Sophie had to go, and then had to take a letter home to her mother with strategies for making sure she was ready for school every day etc. I explained to the mum not to take any notice of it, as obviously she hadn't wanted her child to be very ill, and other than that she had never missed a day, always supported the school, etc. The mum was fine about it but I thought that if I had been a mother I would have been quite cross!

At another school I worked in Year One. One boy was ill quite a lot, and just looking at this little lad you could tell he was quite sickly - very pale, small, skinny etc. The head was very worried about his attendance as he'd spent Reception in another school and hadn't made as much progress by the end as he 'should' have done, and the school wanted him to catch up to make them look good. But obviously with him being off so much he wasn't doing too well. But, I wasn't all that worried. He was one of the youngest anyway so didn't turn six til the end of the year, and I believed he was genuinely ill so I much preferred that he was at home getting better than spreading the germs to me the rest of the children.

Anyway, as I thought would happen, once the weather improved so did his attendance and he made a lot of progress. So I was glad I hadn't hounded his mother about his attendance as the head had wanted me to do.

I agree with OP. I had the same problem. Nasty and threatening letters from school/local authority when my very young son had been very ill.

Whats wrong with a few days, weeks off here and there anyway, I don't understand. I think authorities' attitude is oppressive. Sometimes I think people think being a child is actually just about going to school

Keeping kids home for a duvet day because they are tired!

Get them to bed earlier, simplify their life and teach them that they need to be reliable otherwise you will have hell to pay when they are teenagers refusing to attend school and when they are adults throwing sickies because they have a hang over and then being suprised when they lose their job and come crying home to mum to pay their rent.......

Friends son had cancer last year, school attendance 25% ( which I think is impressive) and the school got low attendance figures as a result even though he was home schooled and oven work in the hospital.

There needs to be a distinction between duvet days, sniffles or centerparcs trips and the real chronic illness or sudden acute illness

Yes, we need to train them up early for a life of slavery, in case they were under any illusions.

I prefer to fill their lives with stimulating activities and send them to a school with very high expectations of work and socialising, if that gets a bit much every now and then they will have a duvet day, as will I and I seem to be gainfully employed and pay a mortgage.

Exactly janelikesjam, I'll be honest if my children are "employed" will consider I have failed them :-(

Its a good thing you have enough money, think how terrible it would be to go to A&E and be met with a note on the door

We had a staff party last night, all staff are at home nursing their hangovers. Please visit the private GP for treatment.......

It's a completely standard letter sent by most schools nowadays (in this borough anyway)

The school will be perfectly aware of yours and any other child's illness but you will still receive the standard letter.

In this borough, attendance in general has raised due to this and other strategies...making parents aware of what is/is not 'acceptable' in terms of attendance.

Obviously 'proper' illness is acceptable as there's nothing you can do...but the letters are designed to stop parents keeping their kids off because they have sniffles and sad eyes...or keeping them off for a whole day, because they have a dentist/doctors/opticians appointment.

I agree hebie.

I wonder why you draw the line with the random duvet days? Age 6? 10? 16? Never?

Heswell we life in a very different world if my children are not employed then i have failed them ,

Heswell we life in a very different world if my children are not employed then i have failed them ,

Heswell we life in a very different world if my children are not employed then i have failed them ,

The problem is that the schools can't necessarily tell which parents are keeping the children off "at the drop of a hat" and which are just keeping them off because they are too ill to be in school.

My ds goes to an infant school and there are some children you see regularly picking younger dc up who are off "ill", but actually well enough to be running round in the park after school. Some of these will be off for most/all of the week, with very little signs of illness. Yes, sometimes you can have a child who has an "invisible" illness, but it does tend to be the same children/parents.

I remember dd getting given an understudy part in a school show. The parent had said their dc wasn't going to be well enough for the show on Thursday on the Tuesday. Their dc apparently had "a cold". They were off all week (but well enough to be playing out in the evenings)

I would imagine that the idea is that if you keep the child off too easily, you might get a shock when you realise how much a day/week here and there adds up to quite a bit of time. If the schools decided who to send them to and who not to (X was really ill so we won't send one to them, Y wasn't ill really so we send one) then parents would feel more victimised and get more indignant because it would be criticizing their decisions.

I'm fairly new to being a school parent and I think our school is fairly good, but I can't believe how stupid and undiscriminating a lot of these rules and systems are. It's as if they come from someone who isn't actually human and can't understand that there are different reasons for things. Any system that can reward some children for full attendance in full view of the others who "failed" is bullying and cruel - how can they possibly think that is good for any of the kids? It's divisive, unfair and horrible. Imagine going though a serious illness and then being punished for missing school. Are they insane?

Luckily we don't get too much of that sort of thing though we do get nagged about attendance generally. Then of course the school will close at the drop of a hat if there's a bit of snow or wind

Well someones children will need to he employed huh? To do the jobs which will clearly be below your children.

I'm with heebies diver days are unnecessary for kids and not a good habit to start. Of course their lives can be exciting/interesting/enriched without missing school.

It's not just, or probably even, the absent child which suffers. It's the whole class. And that is not fair on those who are not so academically able

They don't punish children with serious illnesses for not attending school

An attendance certificate is to 'reward' those who have dragged their arses into school everyday, despite being 'a bit tired' 'off colour' 'sniffly'.

Those kids have done well to continue with their work ethos and so get rewarded....that doesn't mean 'sick children' are punished.

If a child gets a certificate for getting 100/100 on a maths test, does that mean the kids who got less are being 'punished' for not being as good at maths?