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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To think that this jobsworth of a headteacher is a spiteful idiot?

220 replies

GlitteryRollers · 17/12/2015 16:30

I know it's in the Daily Mail, and these school bashing stories are usually rubbish. But I'm pretty shocked by this one.

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3363790/Boy-5-banned-attending-end-term-cinema-trip-classmates-poor-attendance-run-spend-two-weeks-off.html

What a nasty, spiteful cow! I'd be pulling my child out of that school ASAP. "Exceptions can't be made"? He was run over by a car you cruel bitch. Was he supposed to attend school when he was in hospital?

Why is it that so many headteachers seem to lack basic empathy and common sense these days? Even my very strict andy terrifying old primary school head wouldnt have done something so bloody mean.

OP posts:
Bettercallsaul1 · 17/12/2015 22:30

Agree totally with the majority on this thread. This is a shameful policy which rewards the healthy and lucky at the expense of the sick, bereaved and badly-parented.
What sort of values are these to celebrate in our schools?

mrsglowglow · 17/12/2015 22:32

Yes but that teacher hasn't had 100% attendance as she attended funerals and extended holiday due to unforseen circumstances. Schools still record these as being absent so sorry Miss you do not receive your certificate or get a trip to the cinema!

Youarentkiddingme · 17/12/2015 22:32

Punishing any child of infant school age who cannot be responsible for getting themselves to school for poor attendance is not really a thought out policy.

My DS rarely has 100% attendance due to having a disability and medical needs and attending appointments etc.

LuluJakey1 · 17/12/2015 22:36

Many parents condone their child's absence. We ring them and they tell us he is poorly, they write notes, they ring us and tell us he has phoned them and he feels sick and they want us to send him home and are on their way to collect him. It is often absolute rubbish.
DH had one today who was off yesterday with 'sickness' but well enough to attend a carol concert last night. His mum wrote him a note to say he was too ill for school.
At my school the attendance officer went out to a house last week and the boy was on the street on his scooter, ran in the house and closed the door and the mum did not answer the door.The attendance officer rang her and the mum swore blind she was in the house, the pair of them were ill and he had never been out of her sight.
Another day I telephoned her to ask where he was and she claimed he was lying on the sofa ill and I could see him outside my office window in the car. park on his bike, throwing stones. I stopped him going on the end of term trip and she complained to the governors that I was victimising him, he had a stomach problem, his absence was genuine.
We have another at the moment whose mother says he has IBS. She keeps him off, asks for him to be taught in a room next to a toilet that only he can use because he is embarrassed and wants him to have a card so he can leave the room immediately. No Dr or hospital will diagnose him with bowel issues - and she has had him to many-but she persists and he now has her on a string and is kept off school at least two days a week- a term away from his GCSEs.
And our school is Outstanding. Please don't blame schools for the obsession with attendance. Blame parents for causing it by keeping children off. The ones who are really genuine then suffer the consequences as well.

Egosumquisum · 17/12/2015 22:40

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multivac · 17/12/2015 22:42

How do you help those families, lulu? That's what interests me. Not the nonsense 'rewards'; the genuine initiatives. Please could you tell me what the school has in place for each of the families you mention? (If you have a reason why a 100% attendance award might be relevant in any of the cases, again, I'd be interested to hear it.)

Egosumquisum · 17/12/2015 22:42

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AskBasil · 17/12/2015 22:43

I think policies like these show the ethos of a school.

"Exceptions can't be made" because children can't be treated as individuals.

Schools are so depressing. I can't believe we're still running them like this in 2015.

Italiangreyhound · 17/12/2015 22:43

If a number of children are off school without genuine reasons why is this not being investigated instead of penalising those who do have genuine reasons not to attend.

Have schools ever questioned why many kids feel they just don't want to be there? I certainly didn't want to be there and bunked off quite a bit. I was never caught or punished and I don't think any attempt was made to udnerstand why school was so hard for me (dyslexia). That was 30 years ago. Things were different then,

My dd has dyslexia and sometimes feels too ill for school. I do sometimes wonder if the two things are related. I have tried to talk to the school about it on a number of occasions. They are, I think, too busy, stressed and overworked to discuss it properly with me or dd.

Egosumquisum · 17/12/2015 22:44

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multivac · 17/12/2015 22:45

Oh, and lulu, I would think really carefully before sending any child of mine to an Ofsted 'outstanding' school.

An Ofsted 'outstanding' school is not necessarily prioritising its pupils in the way I would prefer.

AskBasil · 17/12/2015 22:45

Oh FGS at all this guff about not blaming schools, blaming parents.

There have always been parents who kept their kids off school.

And there have always been sensible, intelligent head teachers and stupid head teachers.

Nothing's changed.

pieceofpurplesky · 17/12/2015 22:49

To be fair for some the 100% attendance awards are the only thing they will ever get. Some of the most deprived kids attend every day to escape home. All awards can be argued against ..
Sport - biased towards the sporty kids
Academic - if you are born clever
Etc.
The only one that really counts is effort - and some kids have no parental support so don't get 'helped' with effort.
It's a no win situation.

Egosumquisum · 17/12/2015 22:49

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

Dollymixtureyumyum · 17/12/2015 22:52

Hate the "congratulations you have been lucky to not be ill all year, the fact you are a little shit and a bully does not matter we will give you a treat anyway award"
Which was basicly a kid in my nephews class who has been threatened with exclusion. Yet my nephew who was send home by the school because he had conjunctivitis and was off for one day did not get to go.
He is still waiting for his "you are a nice kid and work hard and never cause trouble award"

IguanaTail · 17/12/2015 22:52

If a number of children are off school without genuine reasons why is this not being investigated instead of penalising those who do have genuine reasons not to attend.

Because all you have for it is the parent's word. And while most are honest and well meaning it's not easy to establish which ones are lying. Schools can never know for sure which of the 24 kids whose parents said they were "sick in the night" actually were. Sometimes the parents might not even know and trust their child who tells them that.

Ideally of course you are correct - focus only on the liars. But how to know

multivac · 17/12/2015 22:54

To be fair for some the 100% attendance awards are the only thing they will ever get.

For sure. And for a fuck of a lot of the most deprived kids (including the ones who might get medals and shit under differerent circumstances)... they don't stand a chance.

multivac · 17/12/2015 22:55

Iguana what is your point? I mean, how do you imagine that 100% rewards are separating the shirkers from the authentically absent?

alltheworld · 17/12/2015 22:57

Most working adults don't have 100 per cent attendance at work. It is unrealistic. Why not have an attendance target that allows for periods of sickness? It is wrong on so many levels?

multivac · 17/12/2015 22:57

... and how does excluding 5-year-olds from a party help, in any case?

IguanaTail · 17/12/2015 23:00

We had a boy in a seriously chaotic and dysfunctional household who managed to get himself up and dressed and into school every single day. He was just the loveliest boy. He was kind and polite and really bust a gut with his work. He wasn't very able but he got pretty good grades all the same. He used to get loads of awards and he absolutely treasured them. I remember him telling me with his 100% attendance one "miss I could have taken so many days off you know but I didn't. And now I've got this." for him it was worth it a thousand times. There are some souls who really are proud of these.

multivac · 17/12/2015 23:01

And if he'd had D&V, IT? Fuck his effort for the rest of the year, right?

Egosumquisum · 17/12/2015 23:03

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Message withdrawn at poster's request.

mrsglowglow · 17/12/2015 23:08

How old was the boy Iquana?

multivac · 17/12/2015 23:09

Also, IT it might be worth considering whether that lovely boy, 'busting a gut' to give your school the pretty attendance statistics you're after... might actually been needed at home a few of those days.