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!

but ladyword it wont result in unwell kids being sent to school more often; the parents arent going to do that, just so they can get an attendance certificate

Whilst in primary school it's not such a big thing, it IS worth bearing in mind that at KS4 (so years 10 and 11) 10 days absence, which gives 95% attendance - still 'good', can make the difference between one GCSE grade and another.

I used to be on the receiving end of the parents calls once the EWO had sent out these catch all letters to everyone under a certain % - I'd get shitloads of grief being told 'I told you why X was off, X was ill' - and whilst I understood and HAD recorded that correctly, the Local Authority's policy (not the school) was to write to these parents to say they were being monitored.

Education Welfare Officers (EWOs) have more than one school to deal with, meaning hundreds of children and a myriad of situations to investigate. It's not physically possible to look at each case one by one and say fine - ignore, not fine - send a letter.

You send the letter to everyone, some parents get pissed off because their child is genuinely ill and they can't do anything about it, some get worried that they're going to be fined, some think 'fuck you, I can't be arsed arguing with Y every morning so don't get them out of bed' but most don't realise just how much time their child was having off for sniffles and other minor ailments where it would be perfectly fine to send them in.

Starting to impress the importance of attendance early on means that it's already (hopefully) been ingrained into children by the time they get to secondary school, rather than being relaxed about it and then suddenly hammering the message home when they get into Y9.

Or you could argue that if parents are trusted to know what is best for the well being of their child's physical and mental health then there would be no need for ridiculous blanket letters because the word of the parent could be taken unless proven otherwise but no far better to assume parents don't know their own children and somebody sat in an LEA office who's never laid eyes on them is far more qualified to decide what is right for that individual.

Unfortunately Heswall there are lots of children who have parents who don't know best, who don't give a shit about their child's physical or mental health - and they're generally the parents of the poor attenders (but not always, of course).

Or you could argue that if parents are trusted to know what is best for the well being of their child's physical and mental health then there would be no need for ridiculous blanket letters because the word of the parent could be taken unless proven otherwise but no far better to assume parents don't know their own children and somebody sat in an LEA office who's never laid eyes on them is far more qualified to decide what is right for that individual.

Yes, you could, if we lived in Fairytale land....
meanwhile....

But in some cases the parents aren't doing what's best for the child and may need help and support.

And those saying things should be investigated before sending letters. Without making contact with families how do you expect them to do that?

what pees me off about these blanket letters on matters is the indiscriminateness of it all. re: ds started school in september and has never had nits. likewise the few mothers i know well enough that they'd say if they did. these letters keep coming home saying we have a major nit problem in the class again and again. i'm afraid what irks me is that in reality it will be one or two kids who have persistently had nits that term and have clearly never been treated. rather than have the common sense and guts to speak directly to those parents they keep sending the blanket letter that those parents are ignoring and which don't apply to the rest of us except to rub it in that they STILL haven't spoken to these parents and got them to deal with it.

then there are stupid letters that come from our school about inappropriate hair styles. it's a conservative village school, i've only ever seen one child going in with a dodgy hairstyle. why not just speak informally to the parent of that ONE child rather than send a essentially passive aggressive letter out to everyone?

i do dislike the letter to all culture and think it shows a bit of a fear or reluctance to just speak to the people they know they are trying to target directly.

I too get wound up by this sort of thing, but I do also understand that is (as mentioned above) more to do with league tables & a few bad apple lazy arsed parents badly letting the side down & not getting into gear & getting their DCs to School full stop, DD has one of these in here class, poor kid frequently never gets to school at all, though is well & when he does, its usually very late, so shows up as absent - the DC lives to far away to safely get himself to School :( & I know he's not the only one like this in School.

My own DD has health problems, which despite my making a big effort to get her to School, even when ill & always on time (not catching) add in a bug thats doing the rounds & this invariably means the computer flags her up for a letter -

I have gone in guns blazing over this in the past, as in this instance, DD was ill as a direct result of stress she was experiencing at School at the hands of another out of control DC - so as you can imagine I was not best pleased - the H was very apologetic & embarrassed & explained the system that they as a School have to adhere to & thats its an automatically generated generic letter - she suggested that I complain to the EWO - which I did - doing so actually helped sort out the bigger problem & the H has tried to make sure we don't get any more letters, though its not stopped 100% as it depends on whose in the office, but it doesn't bug me in the way it used to :)

It does bug DD though, as in her words "I go to School when I'm ill, because I want to, but will never get the attendance cert because I can't help being ill & having to miss some school, yet X Y & Z get it for trying harder, when theres nothing wrong with them, so its not fair :(

I think that they are indiscrimant is the point flies

And it is efficient.

1 week child A comes in with headlice, teacher spends few days trying to catch parent and has quiet word. Following week child B has headlice, child B is temporarily being picked up by aunty-message never gets relayed to parents. Next week child C comes in with headlice. In the meantime parents of child A have put in complaint to head about what the teacher said and the way she said it....of course there is no witness or record of teachers tone of voice. Teacher is in meeting with head about this and so fails to manage to have quiet word with parents of child D, who had come to school with headlice. Patents of C haves forgotten what teacher had said about how to effectively treat headlice, have no letter to refer to and so haves not gotten rid of them....

My kids are kept off school if they have a fever, D and V or a contagious illness e.g chicken pox. They don't get "duvet days" if they are tired . Schools hound parents r.e attendance for several reasons mainly because extremely poor attendance is detrimental to children's education but also because it is hugely focused on in the inspection process and is used as a factor in league tables / banding (in Wales) .

Thoroughly agree with SwallowAfly. Schools seem to have this policy of never targeting individuals. I was told by ds's teacher a few years ago that although they knew who the nit spreader was, it was not policy to speak to the child's mother, they had to send letters to everyone in the class. Ludicrous!

I think some cowardly heads use the terms "discrimination" and "fairness" to avoid having to tackle potentially difficult parents.

but swallowfly those particular letters help us to be more vigilant, we get them too & despite being in the same band of parents as yourself - very vigilant & DD has only had them a couple of times, (despite waist length hair) I would MUCH rather have an indiscriminate letter to ALL parents, than the no, its not our responsibility to tell parents & your DCs didn't catch headlice here approach of DDs old Nursery

I have heard of children who have spent a lot of time in hospital or whoa re severely disabled and have (for example) impaired immune systems that make them ill a lot getting threatening letters like this.

I know of a case where the police turned up to force a child with ASD into school (without bothering to inform his Mum who had popped out- he was 15), turning a mild school phobia that often made him late into full on agoraphobia and potential lifelong ESA claim.

I ahve seen Social Services refuse to intervene with a family whose child ahs 50% attendance because it's not 'that bad really', even though child wandered streets all night and was kept home as Mum's companion- she was 7. By all night I mean 3, 4 am.

I am someone whose children have never received one of these letters, so no personal axe to grind, but the system seems severely screwed and able to target those who don't need intervention, miss those who do and scare everyone else!

Oh and I also wish they'd tell the parents of suspected nit spreaders, because although I do comb regularly my eyesight is appalling and i can't do a visual check and would prefer to be tipped off it was my boys.

hear hear. my dd falls ill often, and i have had a shitty pounced upon meeting with the EWO where i was basically told 'stop your dd being ill then we won't have a pop'

I know there are many mothers on here who have children with ongoing health problems, ones that are pretty bloody life changing, and they have had to contend with not only that but by being made to feel like they have no parenting skills.

Good for those kids who can be bunged a bit of calpol and it's fine. My dd had a conditon which was hard to diagnose and was in agony for months. I asked the school for extra work many times, and NOTHING. Then i got dragged in the next term saying 'your dd is falling behind'

wankers. I hate my dd's school. hate it. and now she has started her periods and she is 9, and hey here we go again, every month till she leave we will be being made to feel guilty when she's having terrible cramps.

The calpol kids aren't fine though are they?

In that there are often kids with immunity disorders in a school whose health will be put at risk if they are infected.

But their parents are subject to sanctions if they keep them at home!

just actually reading the thread now, and cory was one mum i had in mind.

oooh i'm cross.

waves to cory xx

I think some cowardly heads use the terms 'discrimination' and 'fairness' to avoid having to tackle potentially difficult parents

This is very true. I think it applies to lots of things, attendance, lateness, nits, paying for lunches on time, providing healthy food in packed lunches, requests for children to have PE kit etc etc.

But then heads, and teachers, shouldn't have to deal with the abuse they sometimes get from parents who are oblivious to the obvious. The children suffer for it, and then the school gets the blame for the inevitable consequences of bad parenting.

Our school (well, the one DS1's Base is in) has a catchment area of huge social problems, really challenging. They spend part of their resources on a dedicated Attendance Officer. The school is ranked in the top 30 in my little country (so out of about 230 schools) and IMO has quite stunning behaviour and achievement records given their intake and compared to the priviledged local school ds2 will attend in September.

YANBU I just Calpoled dtwin s 8 this morning and I feel shit.

There are sooooo many bugs around and I dare not keep him off because he could get a whole lot worse in the coming weeks(some kids have been off for 2 weeks with a fluey thing)and I'm concerned we'll get in trouble.

Totally ridiculous and a tad cruel.

You can't win you get into trouble if you don't send them in and a cats bum face if you have to come and pick them up.

I think the attendance thing has gone bonkers because of a few.There was a good thread on news re the holiday issue and the madness of fining parents.

It's a sledgehammer to crack a nut(that isn't working) and children are made to suffer because of it.

I have to say this over reliance and doling out of Calpol which I hold my hands up to really doesn't teach kids good practice re use of drugs.

It's highly overused.

If we didn't use it far more would have days off as they'd feel too shit to struggle on so really the gov are encouraging drug misuse.

Sancti - same here (blind as a bat) you need one of those electronic headlice combs - they don't kill them as they claim, just stun the nasty little buggers but coming through, they DO make a sound that alerts you to both lice & nits - then you can get the magnifying glass out or scream for help

I swear by mine, never had an infestation since I bought it - that & rosemary oil to keep them at bay :)