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!

It is an offence to send these letters under the MCA It is clear in the link i have done and in what i have copied and pasted from said link. I even put the relevant part in capitals.

Schools are not above the law.

It is an offence to send these letters when the information that the abscence is suspect is believed to be false.

And there are plenty of examples on this thread.

Quoting the law, in capitals or otherwise, does not show which part of the OP's letter contravenes the law.

All you need to do it cut and paste the relevant part from the OP in which the school accuses the OP of keeping her child off for no good reason.

That's the claim you made upthread - shouldn't be too hard to back it up, surely?

I recieved the same letter this morn !!!my dd is in the nursery at school mornings only . Since starting in sept she has had about 7 days off through sickness .
she had a chest infection and conjunctivitis both the same week constant coughing so kept her off a few days to make sure the contagus conjunctivitis cleared and for the antibiotics to kick in for her chest
. When she went back much better and she caught another cold within 3 days from school and made the chest infection come back again :/
she has caught every bug and illness going since September because of all the children that are being sent in still sick coughing and with tummy bugs .
I'd rather keep my dd off school so no one else catches it but these letters are prob why children are being sent in still sick as the parents are worried they will get into trouble .
I wouldn't mind she's not even there full time yet !!! So am definatly not taking it seriesly went straight in the shredding bin :D

You are being disingenuous Rhonda. There are plenty of examples on this thread which break the MCA.

I got a letter just like that!

DD had a cough and she was sick a little (in her mouth) due to having a tickle in her throat . They told me not to take her back for 48 hours. I called the school to say that she isn't sick, she had a tickle in her throat and gagged but does not have a sickness bug. They said she still couldn't come back. She spent two days at home with just a little cough.

Then I get a letter telling me I need to approve her attendance. She had missed half a day earlier in the year due to the school sending her home for a headache.

Until now she has had 100% attendance. She is 8 years old and so very rarely had a day off until the 'sickness thing'.

I hate these stupid fucking letters. She now misses getting her sticker and certificate.. It's not the end of the world I know, but it does bug me that those who have been lucky to have good health get rewards and those who have been ill through no fault of their own have to watch their friend's getting rewards. It feels like a punishment for my dd. Especially when she wanted to go to school and wasn't allowed.

I don't care if the letters are automatic or not. It is easy enough for them to look through her attendance record and see she has an outstanding record and there is nothing to worry about.

Alwaysforever thats absolutely ridiculous. What a nightmare this must be for parents with DC who are immuno compromised.

helena, here's a quote from one of your posts:

Those letters are accusing parents of keeping their children off school for no good reason. Thats accusing them of something they havent done.

Which part of the letter is accusing a parent of keeping their child off school for no good reason?

I'll tell you - no part.

I'd like to see you try to bring a case against a school under the Act you keep quoting [grrn]

Before DS started school the head warned me we would get these letters, that they have to send them out but the best thing to do with it is to ignore it as she knows DS is only off with genuine reason.

We got our red letter last week as his attendance last term was 84% we did what the head suggested and ignored it.

helena, you'd do well to follow the advice of someone like sirzy

I dont have DC Rhonda. But it only takes one parent. Just one.

And it only takes one MNer to make a ridiculous claim that they then can't back up.

helena the letters are only sent to
Parents where children have been off - not one parent in here has said they received the letter if their child had not been off. I cannot comment for other schools but pupils with specific and serious illnesses will NOT get these letters as the system is set up to not send them - all other parents whose children have been off will get one - BECAUSE OFSTED REQUIRE ACTION TO BE TAKEN AND SHOWN FOR EVERY ABSENCE. I put it in capitals just in case you don't think it relevant

Attendance is coded according to the reason. Provided you phoned in his absence with a reason (and not just said "he's sick" or "he won't be in today"), one quick glance at his attendance details would show it marked as illness

Why is "he's/she's sick" not good enough? Do children not have the same medical confidentiality as adults or the same ability to choose who to disclose the precise nature of their sickness to or not?

"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."

(that is only part of letter OP quoted)

Why is that so awful to read, especially when you know it's a form letter? Why is it snotty and patronising?

Why is it illegal for school to send a letter saying "We hope we have your cooperation" ?

(I am so useless at being offended).

If an adult constantly phoned in sick to work without a known pre existing reason then that would be looked into further by the employer. Same happens with children in school.

I would imagine that in most cases an attendance of 84% would be sparking questions from school/educational welfare but because from before he started I have worked with the school and they are fully aware of everything then they don't question it because they know it's not something that we can change at this point

When my sons were in school the state where we live in the US changed its funding policy, whereby they would only pay the daily attendance money if a child was actually in school but would no longer pay for illness absences. As a result my son's schools advised parents to send in sick children until roll was taken, then come and take them home!

It's all about the money!

When my DC's were younger and I still phoned in their absence, the voice message would always say something along the lines of, "Please leave your name, the student's name and a specific reason for their absence".

It's really not unusual in schools, but if you feel it's a breach of confidentiality, you should approach your school to discuss it.

We've had a lot of posts on here from parents who have shared details of their children' serious illnesses with the school because they know that will benefit their child and will help the school to understand how the illness affects their attendance.

I'm part of a Senior Team who looks at attendance in various schools each month. If a child has less than 90% attendance they're "flagged" up. If a child has been ill and the school/s advised of the illness then no letter is sent. If a child has continued illness then we support the parents as it's worrying if a child is constantly ill.

Any child with SEN is looked at separately as we view children's needs as individual. Attendance rates are discussed at individual meetings, it serves no purpose to send a letter to a parent who is most likely already stressed trying to manage day to day.

These letters drive me mad. Some schools send out letters no matter the reasons for absence which is so wrong. They need to be looking at children's individual circumstances and not trying to better their bloody absence rates overall.

But I'm assuming no sane HR dept. would waste time chasing staff with an extempory record for a short period of absence, but, because they reset the records in Sept. at the beginning if the bug season schools do!

Massive amounts of paper and stamps are wasted because letters are triggered DCs average at the end of term with no consideration for the bigger picture.

I wish it were possible for every head teacher in the country to collectively tell Ofsted to fuck off.

Do Ofsted not trust schools to use common sense? Are they expected to send a letter to parents for every child who drops below whatever percentage they deem unacceptable?

There are comments on this thread that even schools are telling parents to ignore these letters, it's a joke.

As a parent I can call up attendance graphs for my DDs plotted against attendance for their forms.

There is absolutely no excuse for schools not seeing the difference between worrying attendance patterns and 1/2 the school having Flu!

Fabulous, I hate the whole attendance thing too and I work in a school and manage attendance, amongst other things!

If you work for Education Welfare as it sounds like you do, you should know that schools have to do what the DfE tells them to do on just about everything, including attendance. And most of the time we also have to do what Education Welfare tell us, because they're the ones checking that we are sticking to the government's rules on managing attendance.

We're not trying to improve absence rates because we've got nothing better to do

seff, even if it were possible for head teachers to tell Ofsted where to go, it would have more impact coming from a parent.