To send this reply to letter about attendance from school

[FamilarSting]

Today I received a letter from school about the attendance of my 5 year old. She has had 6 days off school since January (4 of those were last week - she had a throat infection) and had perhaps another 3 from September - December but the letter doesn't mention those.
This is the letter I received and I will paste my reply. I'd appreciate thoughts on if my reply is too OTT, or rude etc. But to be honest, I am furious and want the letter to convey a certain level of how annoyed I am.

Would I be unreasonable to send this reply?

(FROM SCHOOL)

10th April 2014

Dear Parents of X

Here at X Primary School we take attendance very seriously.

In the Home School Agreement you signed to say you will ensure your child attends regularly and on time. I would like to bring to your attention that X's attendance this term is below the school average. I would like to see some improvement next term.

Please find below the summary from the school register with is recorded with X Education Authority.

(table showing she's had 12 'sessions' off out of a possible 124 which is equal to 90.32% attendance, 0 of those being unauthorized)

Yours faithfully

X (Headteacher)

(all typed, nothing signed)

(MY RESPONSE)

Dear Mr X,

I am sorry that you find X’s attendance so troubling. However, I as a parent find her health more important than keeping above your school’s average attendance statistics. I do ensure my child attends school regularly and on time. Unfortunately she has had several periods of illness this year involving very high fevers. I myself was aware of how frequently she has been off school, and so on Monday 1st April, I sent her to school despite her having a fever. She was subsequently sent home from school and spent a week rather ill at home with a throat infection. I can acquire a Doctor’s note about this if required.

As your letter states, X’s 12 sessions absent from school were always authorized and I always made sure to inform school as to what was happening.

I would also like X’s attendance to improve, but not at the expense of sending her to school with a high fever so that she can feel miserable all day.

When X has been unwell at home, in between doses of paracetamol to bring down her fevers, and when she has felt up to it, we have made sure to do extra practice of her reading books and letter sounds etc.

I and her class teacher feel she is doing well in school and I do not feel these absences have had much negative impact on her studies at her reception class level. If this is not the case, or if these days off have caused her teacher to have to spend extra time in helping her to catch up then I apologise, but I suspect this is not the case.

I find the tone and impersonal quality of the letter I received quite frustrating. You may take attendance very seriously, but perhaps you might like to look at the overall picture of the child; her performance at school, and perhaps the possibility that she might have been unlucky enough to be ill several times in the winter months, amounting to 6 days off school.

X will be taking four days absence next term in order to visit family in Norway.

I will no longer concern myself about whether this being marked as unauthorized might upset your records, as if doing the best we can as per the ‘Home School Agreement’ is not good enough, then I doubt anything will be.

Yours Sincerely

FamiliarSting

Iamdonenow, that was just rude, unkind and unhelpful. And one wonders why so many good teachers are leaving the profession!

Don't ignore the letter. Take action, and improve your child's attendance. The person who will benefit from this is your child.

Take action, and improve your child's attendance.

Do you propose that the OP should send her child to school ill?

Dear **
Thank you for your letter dated //*

I acknowledge and agree with your concerns over attendance. Unfortunately has had a number of 'bugs' causing the absences. You were notified of these at the time in accordance with the present rules.
As these have been a cause for concern we will endeavour to send * in to school in the future regardless. I would appreciate it if you could notify me who will be caring for my child in school during the day whilst he/she is ill.

I haven't read all comments so my comment may be a repeat!

I find it frustrating that SCHOOLS (or rather LEAs) have not realised that there will ALWAYS be someone who is below the 'average' for anything - attendance, attainment, progress etc, etc.

Have people forgotten how 'averages' are worked out these days?

I remember Gove being questioned at some 'high committee meeting' a few months back when he was moaning that schools were performing 'below the national average' and the person in charge sarcastically asked him if maths was his strongest subject at school. He replied it wasn't.

Here is where my argument ends.

OP: I LOVE the tone of your letter.

From. A. Teacher

It's a standard letter. I was furious that I received one for my daughter who was recovering from heart surgery!

IAmDoneNow

Are you under the impression that parents pay headteachers' salaries directly? What an idiotic comment.

And OP, if you're going to reply I'd not send that letter. Schools are doing what they have to do and anyone with any awareness would take up their gripes with government instead of indulging in the customary 'pissed off with school' default position so beloved of a few people on here.

No, I won't be sending that letter. It was somewhat helpful to write it but I guess it will serve no purpose than to express how annoyed I am at them and then label me as the arsey loony parent.

I feel I should write something but now I'm wondering if there is any point.

The head is supposed to be an educated, intelligent person so should be capable of drafting a polite letter. It would rake minutes. I think it is completely unacceptable to send out rude, offensive letters to parents who have kept home sick children. You would actually be neglecting your child if you knowingly sent them to school when they were unfit to be there. You would also cause problems for the staff and the other children who could catch your child's illness.

I would write a very short letter pointing this out. Yours is too long.

I am also concerned by the number of people who say to just suck it up. No one should just accept bad manners. I wouldn't accept them from my child and expect my children's educators to lead by example.

It is not rude. It states the facts. It has obviously touched a nerve. 90% is a poor level of attendance. Most children are in school far more than that, and so they should be. Imagine having 90% attendance at work!

Send it!

Dear Hitler

Thank you for the letter confirming how many days of sickness absence my daughter has had this year. I share your concerns and I am very sorry that my daughter has been unable to attend school on a number of occasions due to illness. Would you prefer it perhaps if I sent her to school to spread germs to the other children and possibly your staff. As my daughter is still very young I am sure you understand she is still building up immunity to many viruses.

If you would like to discuss our mutual concerns further I shall be delighted if you will please contact me to arrange a mutually convenient appointment. At the same time perhaps you would also like to reassure me about how you are going to ensure my daughter achieves her full lacademic potential at your school.

Please don't hesitate to contact me in relation to any other concerns you might have.

Best wishes.

The OP.

A friend of mine was telling me recently about how she attended a PTA meeting and there was a discussion about lessons like this. The head said, yes I know, but they are standard letters set by the LEA. My friend said it was truly heartening to be able to say but why do you have to do that, you're an Academy now and you don't have to do what the LEA says to the letter.

I realise this is not a helpful post but I am so thankful that I am finished with being the parent of a school aged child & don't & did not have to deal with this.

Back in the late 80's/early90's if my DS was ill he stayed at home. Until he was well again. Never had any letters re attendance. I assume the school realised that I (and all the other parents) were responsible & could gauge if a child was well enough or not to attend.

I find this attitude (from the school/Ofsted/government) appalling.

Dear HeadTeacher,

Thank you for your letter informing me additionally to the Home School Agreement, that you take attendance seriously.

I note that your records show 12 authorised absences for health reasons and you would like to see an improvement. We, x's parents would like this very much too. However, Please could you clarify why you have sent me this letter as I am unclear.

Yours,

Xxxxxxx

I don't see how a parent can be expected to have any control over whether their child gets ill or not. Therefore the whole 'improvement next term' part of the letter is rude.

If 6 days absence means that attendance is 90% then I'm honestly surprised that most kids don't fall below this level. They've only got to get chicken pox or something in term time and they're fucked.

It is the same in Medical IEP's, they have a box to tick about how they are going to improve attendance levels with the plan. The plan won't make attendance anything better, the teachers won't make attendance better, the child won't make attendance better, the parents can't make attendance better, the Dr's can't make attendance better, some conditions have no treatment and no cure, so there is nothing that can make it better.

Never mind the school and Gove can carry on putting pressure on the parents with their box ticking.

There is no need to put parents down by teachers, and if the teachers that are leaving are the ones who feel they should be above parents, then thank goodness they are leaving teaching, the world will be a better place for it.

Yes parents are tax payers and the tax payer funds public servants which is what teachers are, again if you don't get that it is a good job you left teaching.

Teachers don't send administrative letters. They teach the children. I am astounded at your rudeness, Iamdonenow. I wonder if you are as disparaging about all those in professions who provide services to you, such as doctors and nurses.

It says it in the name a HT is a teacher, they are sending out letters to parents, so teachers are sending out letters.

Yes the tax payer funds public servants, be they teachers, police, Dr's and so on.

Yes parents are tax payers and the tax payer funds public servants which is what teachers are, again if you don't get that it is a good job you left teaching

Teachers, doctors and nurses are taxpayers too - or had that fact escaped you? Do you tell the checkout operators in supermarkets that your purchase of the goods pays their wages?

And anyone who concocts arsey letters to HTs who are simply responding to governmemt demands must have a lot of time on their hands.

Generally checkout operators don't send shitty letters stating the obvious to people with children who are off school because they are ill.

It strikes me that a less sophisticated mother might take this letter to mean that she is wrong to keep an ill child off school

Hello - man here. Long-time lurker and just decided to break cover.

I work in a senior communications role for a large public sector organisation. Not long after joining, one of the problems I identified was that the letters we sent out to our 'customers' were on the whole badly written, long-winded and full of jargon. Even when telling people good news the letters read as if we were about to take someone to court! Coming from a commercial private sector background I found this incredibly frustrating!

I eventually managed to convince the directors, execs and operational staff that we needed to re-write everything from scratch. We had almost 200 'standard letters' on file and it took about six months from start to finish.

The letters are now shorter, friendlier and use Plain English. The response from recipients has been overwhelmingly positive. This in turn has had a positive effect on staff

So, anyway, the moral of my tale is that I am surprised, and quite disappointed, that so many posters think it's acceptable for schools to send out rude, impersonal and patronising 'standard letters' There really is no excuse for such poor customer service in 2014.

Keep your letter short and simple. Focus on FACTS. Do not be rude or try to be 'clever' but always ask for a response and preferably a solution.

Cheers.

Do you think HTs actually want to send "shitty letters stating the obvious" ?

Do you think Parents want to receive shitty letters, when they have ill children?

MrRedAndBlue there's hardly a "solution" if the child has been genuinely ill is there?

These letters go out because the government and Ofsted put pressure on schools. Of course there are parents who keep children off for no good reason but the ridiculous thing is that the letters have to be generated once attendance falls below a certain level. To read some of the responses it appears that some posters think the schools send them out for the fun of it.