to scream in frustration. dd1, illness+ school absence

[WellThatsLife]

Dd has an iep due aspergers. One of her aims for this year is attendence of 90%.
Her attendence last year was low for 3 main reasons:
Her asthma got really bad resulting in a five day hospital stay, ne umerous chest infections and exacerbations and a severe bout of flu which nearly hospitalised her again.
She has repeated dental problems and infections due to an accident when she was 8, she has been referred to the hospital dentist for specialist work.
She had a lot of appointments with hospital consultant and camh.

Don't konw what I could have done although thankfully her asthma does seemto be better controlled.
Anyway this year so far
most of one morning for hospital appointment (bus times+appointment never seem to coincide)
Started with a cold one Sun, got sent home late mon morn (didn't think her adthma wad that bad but school thought it was!) but by wedsnes really struggling so gp thurs morn antibiotics, steroids and 2 daysoff .
Last sunday norovirus so 3 days off again seemed to be fine, was in thurs+fri then last night diarrhoea started last night, still on going.
what am I supposed to do, we're not going to make 90% at this rate and I'm wworried we'll get referred to the ewo. I'm going to speak to gpin the morning and see what they say

Zipzap you read my mind

It's a target. If she misses, she misses - she can't help being ill.

Your Dd qualifies for protection under the Equality Act and the Code of Practice as both her Aspergers and her Asthma would be regarded as legal disabilities.

Which means the school has to make reasonable adjustments to ensure she is not directly or indirectly discriminated against for reasons related to her disability. One obvious reasonable adjustment is that it won't work for her to be held to 'typical' standards of school absence management, and obviously her condition will fluctuate year to year, it can't be predicted.

I'd suggest talking to your local parent partnership (will be on your LA website) for some advice as they know the letter of the law and have a lot of experience of supporting parents in equality/disability related issues with schools, but as you have evidence of her illnesses (and that you weren't on holiday in Spain or out shopping, or she is school-refusing which are the kind of issues that should be absence managed) this isn't going to come to anything. The EWOs I would think at most would look at some of the support needed by children with chronic illness who are too unwell to attend school regularly. What do the school have in place at the moment in this way? Is it on her IEP? IEP targets can and should be adapted if circumstances change. Particularly the silly ones.

Another thought that might give you useful ammunition: they may need it explained, clearly, that dd may be more vulnerable to and more affected by the bugs all children get because of her asthma, and is likely to take longer recovering.

Added to everything the other posters have said, an IEPS is supposed to lay out the provision made by the school, to meet your DD's additional needs.

So what are they doing to support her? Do they, for example, provide extra tuition, to cover what she has missed due to her legitimate illnesses?

^sorry that should say IEPS. Typo.

^IEP. Autocorrect fail.

Has she got a health care plan as well as Iep? Have a look at

www.gov.uk/government/publications/supporting-pupils-at-school-with-medical-conditions--3

Also call eWo and ask which officer deals with children with medical conditions. Ask for a face to face or phone consultation. And lay put the situation.

And get the attendance target scrapped.
It us not something she can control .

Seriously don't worry.

My dd had had way under her expected attendance for the last 2 years and it probably won't get much better.

She has physical and psychological issues.

She's off when she needs to be.

Twill all be the same in 100 years.

Perspective.

There is nothing you can do about it. DD2 has had shirty, patronising letters from school for attendance the last two years.

All good reasons, including fetching up at the GP for the first time in 11 years (with a secondary ear infection to the nasty virus the whole school had.)

Just bad luck, she managed more days off those two winters than in pretty much the whole of primary, including breaking her arm twice.

DD2 may be good at avoiding the GP, but not A&E and the orthopaedic dept. at the hospital.

It would be difficult for us to have been away last year as although her attendance was only 86% her sisters was 98.6(she never seems to get ill, it's just not fair!)

Life isn't fair!

Rang the school this morning and explained the situation then spoke to the dr who confirmed that this particular norovirus is causing prolonged illness in some people and she needs to stay off and if necessary the schoolcan ring the surgery and they will be happy to confirm that she is ill. Spoke to her keyworker at the school and she was alright about it so just haave to hope her stomach settles soon

Well the school are going to love us, 3 days off in the last 2 weeks and she was admitted to hospital last night with a chest infection so probably off most of this week. Oh well

When a child is unwell there isn't much you can do about sending them to school. I am sure if you kept sending her in unwell then they would also be complaining

Agree this should not be an iep target

an IEPS is supposed to lay out the provision made by the school, to meet your DD's additional needs

This. I'd be very unimpressed with an IEP for attendance. Ds1 has 2 IEPs, one for SALT because he's 'behind' and another for maths because he's significantly ahead...but they're both really detailed in what the school will be doing to support him. An IEP in this instance seems inappropriate.

It isn't an appropriate IEP target, as others have said. But you should have a copy of it so do check (obviously when things are more settled & you have time) what the school are doing to support this. I agree with others that contacting the EWO yourself might be good to see what help they can offer. Hope your dd gets better soon & isn't in til long.

Too long, sorry. Stupid fat fingers.

We have specifically been told by DS Headteacher not to worry about his attendance in the terms of it causing people to ask questions. She knows they will, but she also knows that I am making every effort to ensure he is in when he is well enough and that going in when too ill will make him worse not better.

The school should be working with you to minimise the impact of absense rather than making the worry of her being ill worse.

This is a completely inappropriate goal on an IEP. I would be putting that in writing to the school and pointing out that it is unachievable as your dd has a chronic illness as well as ongoing medical problems. Using attendance as an IEP goal is literally setting her up for failure as there is no way that she can actually achieve the goal through her own efforts.