To ask why you think attendance does form part of ofsted assessments?

[bejeezus]

reoccurring thread theme on MNs- how ridiculous the attendance policy is for schools

lots of people in favour of taking kids out during term time for various reasons, off the top of my head;

1. affordable holidays etc as family time and other life enhancing experiences are as important as formal education
2. couple of weeks out of a year wont affect childs education
3. too much focus on attendance, it shouldnt form part of ofsted performance criteria
4. Teachers/ schools should be able to use there judgement to allow the more able/diligent children/families to take time off
5. Parents should make that decision for their own children/ not the schools or LAs place to do so- 'nanny state'

My take on this is that;

I agree, a weeks holiday here and there may very well not affect a childs education. And that family time and other experiences are important and valuable

BUT

attendance forms part of ofsteds performance criteria because it IS important. It affects a schools performance and so it affects your childs eductaion. The effect of a child being out of teh classroom may not affect that childs education, but it very wll may have a knock on effect on other children in the class, probably the less academically able. If every parent took their children on holiday during term time then the teacher would be unable to teach effectively as she would always be facilitating catch up; therefore the children wouldnt reach the standards that they should

the reason these 'nanny state' rules evolve is because people put their own self-interests above all else, and this is to protect the masses

Why no distinction between authorised/unauthorised absence? It's as though ofsted don't care about the reasons, don't care about the individual, are just a vast bureaucratic monolith unable to distinguish between those with chronic illness and those who truant a lot

in my experience other children are most certainly not affected by other kids non attendance
one boy in my son's class is a repeated truant - he gets no extra facilitation at the expense of the rest.
other kids take 2 weeks off in June every year - again there is no catch up
(and exactly how is a brief conversation with the parent to name a few topics to cover at home going to disrupt the class - everything can be looked up on the internet these days they don't even need to give the parents anything)
ofsted wants to measure everything by statistics but everyone's lives are complex. The reports are necessary to identify truants or homelife problems but are instead used wrongly for schools to compete and to fine other parents just going about their lives.
my son's attendance is normally very high - the one year it was below 95% was due to a combination of visiting his granda on his death bed, attending 2 funerals, and snowed in for 5 days. No sickness or holidays that year but off for very good reasons. he got no facilitation with catch up and we expected none. His marks are still good I don't think any other child suffered whilst he was at granny and granda funeral

Good point Merci - when DD2 was ill I even got the standard 'letter home' from the LEA about her attendance - I asked them if she should be in school with bloody infectious shits - they said no!

Im a TA for a Y1 class. I find that sometimes when a child misses school it makes a difference to the other children, and sometimes it doesn't.

Sometimes the difference is something as small as a child not having a piece of work on the wall about the same thing that all the other children have, so it affects no one but the child. At other times the child will be upset not to have made something that the others have done so I either have to spend time comforting them, or helping them do the thing that they missed. At that age, I find that it only makes a difference to the child who has been away educationally if they are below average in the class, otherwise they just slot in and catch up without too much bother. But that's because at that age there is quite a difference in the abilities of the class anyway, so if a more able child has to catch up they can be moved into a group with children that are not as able for a couple of weeks until they are able to move back up again.

I can see how it would make a difference to all the children in the older year groups, especially as the older year groups don't always have a full time TA.

If every time a child is off your child suffers, are you complaining at parents of ill children? If one child has a week off with a chest infection and mine has the same week off on holiday, the impact on you and yours is the same. So you should be equally outraged at ill children. Bet you aren't though, are you?
What is the difference?

The difference is that childrens illness is inevitable and should be taken into account when teachers plan their time in class because it can't be helped. When children are going on holiday, it is not inevitable, it is not something that can't be avoided.

Not every child is going to need weeks at a time off school with illness. But if schools started saying that it was ok to take children out of school whenever parents wanted to, lots of children would be doing it so the effect would be much bigger.

how can teachers plan for illness?
and the effect would not be that much bigger as most ppl would continue the way they are currently doing..most parents would still try to avoid term time where possible but some just can't avoid them due to work - difference is they wouldn't be criminalised
what about term time SCHOOL trips? - they can be avoided so why do schools permit them? why should my kids suffer cos other kids are playing catch up from that Ski trip, geography trip etc? bet they don't appear on ofsetd reports

My experience is only on KS1, but they plan for it in that they know when a child is off sick and can send bits home with a sibling, or make sure there will be time while the children are playing to go through something with the child that had been absent.

I don't think that attendance figures would be what they are without the penalties and without term time holidays being frowned upon as much as they are currently. A lot of parents do want to avoid unauthorised absences, but would take their children out of school if they were led to believe it didn't matter.

Geography trips are part of the curriculum and are learning experiences. Not all learninghas to be done in a classrom. As far as I have seen, skiing trips and the like take place in the holidays.

DS1 is in Year 8 and they are told in no uncertain terms about attendance % requirements-hence DS1's major panic. 96% is the target, and now it's 'only' 93% he is really upset.

There is no practical difference, if a child is off they are off, its your feelings on the matter that are different. It's hypocritical and nonsensical to base your objections on intent.
In fact if you think about it, its far easier for a teacher to plan around an anticipated abscence like a holiday than around an unexpected illnesses.

seems to me that your problem isn't actually that other peoples holidays affect your child, and more that if you are losing out because you're following rules, you want everyone else to as well.

That's a bit harsh! It's got nothing to do with me losing out because I really don't feel like I am losing out. I have no desire at all to take my children out of school when they should be there, they like going and I love their schools so want to support their teachers.

I'm amazed you can't see the difference between the two reasons for having time off in that one is avoidable and one isn't. One will be a minority of children, the other could potentially be most of the children.

I think some parents have justifiable reasons for wanting to take their children out of school so refuse to see that it could be disruptive to their child, the other children or the teacher because they simply don't want to acknowledge that their choices may have consequences.

I'm amazed that you can't see that whether my child is off on holiday or off with chicken pox makes no difference to you at all, the only variable at play is intent, and since you are claiming that its the impact of my childs absence on yours that is the problem, you don't really have any argument at all.

I assume that in lower income/poverty stricken areas, poor attendance is noted for very different reasons than paren't wantng a week or two in Centre Parcs!

I imagine that the HT's ability ...along with the teachers, to motivate the families to attend regularly is of utmost importance.

Why no distinction between authorised/unauthorised absence? It's as though ofsted don't care about the reasons, don't care about the individual, are just a vast bureaucratic monolith unable to distinguish between those with chronic illness and those who truant a lot

It used to be that Ofsted did distinguish between authorised and unauthorised but not anymore. They don't even set aside religious absence which we have to give (as we should) and that puts schools with a large number of muslim children for example on the back foot from the off. If you have children with serious chronic illness, childhood cancer for example, you can make a case for those children to be removed from your figures at inspection time.

A child is only likely to be off with chicken pox once. They could be off any number of times for holidays if schools didn't strongly encourage parents not to do it.

Chicken pox, chest infection, flu, whatever. Some kids have far more illness than others. My children have higher attendance than many of their peers, and we take a week or more off during term for holidays.
But you're still missing the point. Say my kid is off for a week. You don't know why. Are you annoyed or not? You can't decide, because its only my intent that makes the difference to you. Child sick, never mind, not a bother...child on holidays, what a cheek, how dare they, my poor child will be at a disadvantage due to their holiday....
It's hypocritical.

Of course children being absent through sickness has same affect as child being off to go on holiday. But sickness is an unavoidable absence. Holidays during term time are unnecessary.

You can only limit absence, you can't reduce it to nothing. But I like a system that reduces unnecessary absence as much as possible

Loosing out on what mickey?

I don't know, I'm not the one complaining about what other people do!

They may be unnecessary to you, but to my family, holidays are entirely necessary. And luckily I don't live in the UK, so I can do so without penalty or approbriation. And my childrens abscence has no detrimental effect on anyone else. The joys of living in a civilized country!

I agree with outraged in that the parents who take kids out in term time don't want to consider that their choices have negative impact on other kids

I would really like to establish though, whether it generally does have a substantial impact

In our school it did. But I'm talking about a lot of families visiting relatives over seas for months at a time.

Also by your reasoning mickey the truancy has the same negligible effect as the family holidays-as only the intent is different

How would you feel if every child in your child's school was taken out during term time? it would have an effect

Truancy is entirely different matter altogether (I would have thought that fairly obvious).

How would I feel if every child was taken out during term time? I would have no opinion at all, it would make no difference to me. Work is not repeated for anyone missing, the lesson plans carry on as normal. Like I have repeatedly said, THE ABSCENCE OF CHILDREN MAKES NO DIFFERENCE TO THE ONES THERE. My sister is a teacher, she says the same. No odds to her if you take your child on holliers, she won't do anything different.

What exactly do you think is going to happen to your child because mine goes on holidays?

I'm unlikely to know if your child is off as a parent of a child in your child's class. I'm not really speaking from that perspective. As I said earlier, I work in a y1 class, and I'm speaking from what I see. Children in my class get free play time a few times a week, so it's not that hard for us to use some of that play time to get the child that was away to do a picture or a piece of work to go up on the wall in that time. Or to let the child who is gutted that everyone else has made something they like and dont have take the time to make one. But in Y2 and above there just isn't the extra time for that. Thankfully children are more able to accept why they have missed out then, but that won't stop them being disappointed, and it won't teach them the thing they missed last week that they need to know for this week.

It is reasonable to expect a teacher to spend extra time helping a child catch up if they have been ill because it couldn't have been avoided. It is not reasonable to expect a teacher to give extra time to a child because they have been off having a lovely holiday, because that could have been avoided.

Some parents will help their children catch up, but some won't. A lot won't. They see the teaching as the teachers job and expect the teacher to be able to deliver the same results even if they haven't bothered to make sure their child attends school. I do realise that many parents are justified in taking their children out, and ime, teachers will make the effort to help. But schools have to consider the parents that will keep their child off school for every sniffle, then take them on holiday, then do nothing at all to help their education. Thise are the parents that get complained about, because teachers are still judged on the results that child achieved even when they could physically do no more for them without taking their time away from other children.

Like I said, the more able children would catch up with missed work that matters to their education fairly easily. I'm thinking the literacy and numeracy type things. So thats not really a big problem in teh age group i work with. But there are some children that are already behind the majority of the class, and for them to be taken out of school for a weeks holiday is quite detrimental to their learning. It just is. Parents don't like to admit it and they will justify it by blaming holiday prices or whatever, but then when their child has time off for holidays on top of normal illness, they wonder why their child is still on the first band of reading books and doesn't seem to be improving.

It matters because low attendance is associated with lower achievement. Parents of persistent truanters are tackled in a different way to the taking kids out for a holiday parents.

I live somewhere where children go to see relatives abroad for weeks at a time. it never affects my dds learning. My dd goes on holiday with her gps in term time once a year she learns more from that than she does at school sometimes! I don't think attendance should affect the ofsted report.

I work at a nursery school we have lots of kids who are absent a lot. Some have medical reasons, some visit family for weeks at a time and some just don't come because its not compulsory. Its just the way it is and I don't think the staff could change this so its silly it affects the report.