To be pissed off about a snotty letter re ds's attendance?

[Whowillsaveyoursoul]

He's in year one and had four days off last term. He had a sickness bug two of the days and a chest infection the other two. The chest infection was quite nasty actually but happily tagged onto a weekend and half term otherwise he'd have missed more days than he did. Maybe they think we went on holiday?!
Anyway Aibu to think 'get lost' - what do they want me to do? Send a vomiting 5 year old into school? Send a child with asthma who can't breath properly and with a temperature of 40 into school?
Hopefully he won't have any more time off - the letter says 'whilst we appreciate there may have been valid reasons for the absences we hope we have your full cooperation to ensure there are no further absences next term.'
How would the like me to ensure that my child doesn't catch norovirus? I'm really cross!

Good suggestion Hannahabbott and one that shouldn't take up much more time than sending automated letters does now.

OP I am angry on your behalf, how irritating. I do agree though that it's probably a box ticking exercise, but ring and complain anyway. Perhaps they'd prefer you sent your child in to infect everyone, inc teachers, with d&v? There would be a lot of low attendance then wouldn't there!

My DS is only tiny still but I am not looking forward to his school days for things like this. If you are very little and feel poorly, going into school is not going to help you recover, and will make you miserable. And I say this as the dd of a mum who felt you needed to have a broken leg to get a day off school (if of course you couldn't drag the bleeding stump around all day )

I think she means students with known medical issues, life limiting conditions etc.

'naice' mc - ffs.

oh sorry my mistake, I got the wrong end of the stick.
My children's school does have children on different lists, for various reasons.

The only parents that get annoyed by these letters are the ones who care about their children's attendance .

Do the schools/ WO's really think that the less concerned ( couldn't give a toss) parents are shaking in their shoes when they receive one !

I don't think so .

In the secondary school I worked in (1000 pupils), we'd look at the low attendance figures then look at the pupils. Take out seriously ill ones (ie cancer to glandular fever) as generally we'd be in conversation with the parents anyway. Then look at who needed a letter, phone call or meeting. Yes it's time consuming but sending a generic letter irritates patents and achieves nothing. If a secondary can do this then a primary can.

Thanks Seff, I was referring to life-limiting illness not the parents who earn over x amount or drive a 4x4. :)

"No, my children weren't ill! I would have sent them to school if they were! We were on our annual 4 week skiing trip, how dare you ask why they weren't in school"

lol

I think things have changed though - I also used to work in a secondary school, and form teachers were sent the letters before they went out. So if a child had been really ill or a parent had died or something I had an opportunity to bin them. Also in those days they were only sent when attendance was below 90%, this figure has gone up .....

I had this last year. My son who was in year 10 was off in January for 3 days due to D&V, then was off in February for 2 days with a heavy cold, then was off again with D&V. He did have some time off but was genuinely ill. I had to go and see the welfare officer!

It pissed me off as he was really ill and infact for Years 7, 8 & 9 he got 100% attendance awards. He was really ill so I kept him off in line with the schools D&V policy.

I had one to say that my son's attendance at 95.65% was below their target of 95% and that they were keeping an eye of his attendance.

I really disagree with posters who suggest you should ignore these letters. Yes, they have to be seen to be doing something, and yes, they're computer generated. But that doesn't change the fact that someone at the school has drafted this patronising nonsense and the headteacher is endorsing it every time a letter goes out. I think parents need to challenge in circumstances like OP's, confirming that the school well knows why the child was absent, asking them to explain in detail how they suggest the parents prevent the child picking up bugs and in particular whether they will guarantee that there is no chance of any bug being picked up whilst at school. Ask them also to confirm that, if your child does get ill, they want him to come into school. If they demand doctors' notes, tell them they will need to pay for them. And don't accept any fobbing off phone calls, tell them you want a reply in writing with a copy on the child's file.

Something has to happen to stop this, and it won't whilst we all shrug our shoulders and accept it.

My year 9 dd had 6 weeks off in the Spring term due to complications from an appendectomy. All teachers sent work to the hospital and there were no problems re attendance. Fast forward to year 10 and by October she had had a few days off with flu and it took her attendance under 80% for the half term. She received through the post a postcard saying "Well done! You are really making an effort to come to school regularly this term. Keep it up!". We did laugh

AtTheEndOfTheTunnel Seems that attendance is the least of their worries! In fact, maybe it's best the kids don't go to school!

the thing is ici while I agree with you, personally I only have so much energy.

Sorry haven't read the whole thread however I would send a letter stating the reason he was off and ask them to keep it on his record

Yes, they have to be seen to be doing something, and yes, they're computer generated. But that doesn't change the fact that someone at the school has drafted this patronising nonsense and the headteacher is endorsing it every time a letter goes out.

I agree actually. Yes, I have a bit of a rant to DH before binning it ignore it, I know it's computer generated and standard, but someone has actually sat and written it in the first place.

In our case, my DD missed afternoon registration 6 times - she was seeing a counsellor which was arranged by school. The counsellor picked DD up from school at lunchtime, then returned her an hour later, but the timings meant she missed afternoon registration once a week for 6 weeks. She'd been in school all morning, then again for the afternoon.

I don't really understand why she was marked as absent when she was on a school arranged and sanctioned appointment in the first place to be honest, but it was the wording of the letter that made me

Haven't RTFT, but need to say that schools are under extraordinary pressure about absence. The definition of persistent absence (which is a key figure for OfSTED) is changing to 90% from 85%, meaning that schools are absolutely hammered for the number of pupils who are attending for less than that.

Early in the year, the figures are obviously higher - if there are only 35 school days in the first half term, then three days absence is nearly 10%.

The majority of schools, teachers, heads and attendance officers think the system is bollocks, but we are stuck with it. A school near me had attendance 0.2% below the national average - this was highlighted as a major failing in their report!

If the people implementing this ridiculous system don't like it and won't do anything about it, what hope have the rest of us got?

Motherofdragons that is exactly the sort of system I was getting at in my post. One that uses common sense.

Clearly it can be managed in secondary schools, so why not in primary schools?

My girls' secondary school often uses an automatic text messaging system to query absence / lateness. Sometimes the bus is late delivering them to school and it sends out the message before they get a chance to stop it, but we don't get too many problems really.

There is no reason why a HT cannot stand up to Ofsted about an attendance letter being sent to a child with a life-limiting illness. If more did, maybe more attention could be spent on the families who are causing concern.

seff - our hands are tied. My former boss, a very moral man, refused to play the game. He got absolutely hammered for it. No longer works in education.

My school knows the parents well. We try to do as much face to face as we can but it is hard. Sometimes we have to send the letters without a phone call as there aren't enough hours in he day.

Equally, some HTs are knackers with no morals whatsoever and just carry on regardless.

If i were you id be writing to ask how they calculate worrying attendance. 4 days since september doesnt sound like very much to me, so id be checking for an admin error. I once got a certificate meant for the person after me on the register because the teacher had just misread it.