To think that attendance recording at school is unfair

[ICompletelyKnowAboutGuineaPigs]

So not actually attendance recording per se. I understand why schools monitor attendance and why this is important.

But at my DS's (aged 6) primary school they reward attendance (100%) at the end of every term with a special assembly, a certificate and extra 'golden time' in the afternoon. Now DS has not missed a full day of school or been late this term BUT he has had some appointments during school time. He is currently being assessed by the ASD team and they requested assessment by Speech and Language therapy and Occupational Therapy. The school know about this and the services have liaised with the school to keep them updated. No complaints so far, the school have been great.

The appointments are made by the services and so on 2-3 occasions he has had to miss an hour or two of school - but I always pick him up as late as possible and drop him off afterwards. He hasn't been awarded his attendance certificate because of these occasions. AIBU to think this is a bit unfair? I can't decide if it is discriminatory and whether I should take it further or whether the school are being perfectly reasonable because he hasn't been IN school 100% of the time (my friend's DD, however, has received her certificate despite leaving school early due to illness so I'm not sure what their exact criteria are).

I have spoken to the school SENCO/attendance monitor and he actually agrees with me but says he has to work within the guidelines. Should I challenge the guidelines or just it go?

[JE001]

The reason why schools don't make allowances for illness, appointments, etc, is that it's one more detail to have to think about. It's much easier to go with 'present / not present' and leave it at that. But if someone makes an issue about it, they should just shrug and say 'yeah, fine' and hand out the attendance award at the next opportunity. No idea why it's such a big deal for everyone.

[SofiaAmes]

Attendance awards should be based on attendance figures that do not subtract for excused absences. I have a child who missed many many weeks of school each year because of illness. Do they really think that issuing an award encourages negligent parents to send their kids to school? All it does is encourage competitive children to nag their parents to send them to school when they are truly too sick to go (dd is one of these).

[StanleyLambchop]

Jam- we all know that turning up for registration means you get your mark as present even though you may go absent 10 minutes later. But the argument that schools use to justify these awards is that they are encouraging good attendance for the educational benefit of the child- ie the more hours they are in school, the better it is for their education.

So how can they, by the same token, say it is all right to register for school, leave straight after, be away all morning, but get back in time for the afternoon session and they get 100% attendance? That is making mockery of their own mantra about children needing to be in school for their educatiion, when it is in fact a case that children need to be in school for registration only so that the school can claim good attendance figures. If they want to fiddle the figures in this way then fine, but perhaps they should cut all the crap about it being for the sake of the child's education!!

[CFSKate]

It is bad enough being a chronically ill school child, without being officially rejected because of your poor health.

I didn't know they now had proms just for the able-bodied.

[OddBoots]

It looks like Ofsted should be our focus here, I'd certainly back a campaign for them to disregard absence related to disability as already described in the equalities act. If they disregarded it the school would be able to but at the moment they are caught in a tug of war between what is right and Ofsted.

[jamdonut]

Gosh didn't expect that.... I was only trying to explain how it works!!

Don't have an answer for it. That is how it is.


And I agree...my own son was caught out missing on 100% for all year for missing one registration.

Sorry for upsetting everyone

My school has just come out of special measures:one of the things was attendance. By rewarding children for attendance and inter-class competitions, the attendance has now reached well above average. Children whose attendance was improved were also given rewards.

I agree it seems unfair,but it is what is expected. I didn't write the rules.

[jamdonut]

And for those who think it doesn't happen in the Real World...take a look at Tesco's. They are forever on about staff attendance .

[MandragoraWurzelstock]

I don't like attendance awards. Totally discriminatory. All they do is reward the already fortunate.

Luckily our school doesn't issue them. It reminds me why I disliked the other school we went to see...they had a competition to win a bicycle every term. I think that was for attendance.

It makes me feel a bit sick tbh.

[MandragoraWurzelstock]

Oh I've just looked it up. It's actually for reading. So you read every night, you get a token. and then you get entered into the prize draw.

That's not so bad. Your child can read to you whatever you're doing I suppose

[Wheresmycaffeinedrip]

Its not just tesco. The company I work for offers a cash bonus at end of the year for 100% attendance and disciplinary procedures are in place for those who's attendance is considered too poor. So, does it stop people calling in sick? Doubtful given its really not enough to drag yourself in over. It merely creates problems as rotas r constantly changed to try to get the sick days arranged as the standard two days per week. And don't get me started on how selfish it is to expect people to come in and spread their germs about so all the staff get sick. One member of staff was pulled up on it when she was off with swine flu.

[tethersend]

Workplace attendance schemes would only be comparable if they rewarded you for your parents' actions.

Which, as far as I know, none do.

As it would be ridiculous.

[Kp9111]

ICompletelyKnowAboutGuineaPigs - So what did you decide to do ? I would be very interested to hear x