How ill do your kids have to be before you keep them off?

[sockrage]

For transparency dd usually has 98.8 - 100% attendance.

This year she has 97. Something. She has had three days off poorly plus half a day lost mark when she left school an hour before the end of school but two minutes before the afternoon register was taken. (weird day set up and only one period after lunch)

She has an awful cough and is coughing all the time. Her nose is running badly and she is running a minor temp.

The last time I sent her in like this teachers made comments how ill she was and how her eyes were streaming and it made me feel like a crap mother.

She is feeling rotten but imo it is just a bad cold. If it was me I would proprably be in work.

I would not want my child sitting beside someone coughing and sneezing all over the place or who has been dosed up on Calpol to keep them in. If they're sick, keep them off.

If my DC had any kind of temp, I'd keep them off. But that's just the way I've been brought up to regard temps. I would do it just as much to stop it getting worse as for any reasons of how she feels on that particular day

Here it has to be a temperature over 38 and/or vomiting.
If it was a terrible cough that was going to distract them and all the other kids then I might keep them off for a day until it subsides. One of mine pukes if she has a really bad cough so I tend to keep her off then.

I keep my daughter off regularly as nearly everytime she has had a cold in the past it has swiftly turned into bronciolitus. She goes downhill really scarily fast and has to be at hospital asap to be given oxygen and such. because of this, everytime she has a cold I keep her off, which some would say is extreme but I don't particularly care..I like to keep an eye on her when theres a large risk of her getting very ill very fast.

She is at nursery at the min so attendance doesn't 'matter' like it does in proper school. Apparently she should grown out of this by the time she is 5-6. However if it stays the same I will continue to do the same thing regardless of if I am getting shit for her attendance.

We have three ways to get off school.

1. Something is broken and not yet supported by plaster.
2. We have a fever.
3. We are bleeding (and no, menstruation doesn't count).

I don't go by what I would do. Of course I would work with a fever. I have delivered lectures when I was nearly hallucinating with fever. But that's the insanity of my work. I chose that.

For the older two, 16 and 11. I leave it up to them. Neither take the piss, if they are unsure I usually tell them to see how they go. School has a good MI room and will give paracetamol or send them home if they are really ill.

For the younger two I go on instinct really, how they look, if they are happy to eat and play, if they are still asleep at 7:30. My five year olds teacher is pretty strict on sending children home so I've learned not to send DS in if I'm unsure.

When the children are unable to participate in normal family life is my benchmark i.e. they dont even have the energy to get out of bed.

One of the dcs has a health issue that means they can be fine one minute, Not OK the next minute. Its easy to tell when the dc is properly unwell as you cant fake this issue

Ive been called by school a few times to go and collect them, however a) I have the attitude that unwell children shouldnt be in school, b) the DC in question has a care plan with steps to take in it and c) its an independent school anway so none of this nonsense about 99.9999999% attendance.

keep her home. All she'll do is feel like crap, take longer to recover and pass it on to her classmates/teacher. She'll have her whole adult life to have to push through feeling shite and having to work etc.
I've sent my ds to school and had him sent home a few time but that was because he was always faking being ill.....and doing it rather well. I've also phoned the school to say he was ill and then driven him in a short while after. As soon as the school bus passed he would be jumping on the couch right as rain.
My DD insisted on going to school regardless of how she was feeling. We had a massive row when she was about 9 because she wanted to go to school but she had a temp of 103!

Depends on age.

I'd send her in if in KS2 or above

Depends on how DD seems. If she seems a bit ill but otherwise perky, off to school. If she seems like a zombie, wont talk and wants to sleep (Huge indicator that she is very unwell) Then home she stays.

My DD hasnt had a sick at all this school year. She's had minor coughs and colds but otherwise ok.

My daughter's TA had a bit of a rant the other day (completely inappropriate, but that would be another thread) about people who send their kids in with coughs, runny noses and mild temps: it sets up a domino effect of ill kids, some of whom will get it worse than others. A parent may worry about their own child's attendance record, but the decision to share their germs with the rest of the class has an impact on the whole class attendance record. It's also a bit pointless to send a child to school if they're not capable of participating - better that they get the rest in order to recover more quickly, rather than soldier on and end up slightly ill for a couple of weeks.

Interestingly, the TA was quite clear that the main culprits are the parents whose decision is based on their need to work, rather than how ill their child is.

I find it a nightmare: dd is way too good at being pathetic when she's ill. I've kept her off when I probably should have sent her in, and I've sent her in when I definitely should have kept her off.

Ah! I do this professionally :)

My outline guide is:

high temp which isn't brought down by 2 paracetamol or which has been running over 24 hours,
or
vomiting and/or diarrhoea
or
recogniseable doctor treated illness such as bronchitis
= off

everything else = in

Our school is weird. They are very, very strict on attendance but send them home for incredibly minor things, which is really unhelpful I would keep mine off if it was as bad as yours sounds. They really can't concentrate with a stuffed up head.

Very antisocial IMO to send kids to school with coughs, colds, D&V, sore throats, a temperature or anything infectious.
If school is really being difficult phone your GP ask them to write a note. They will back you.

My 10 year old is the healthiest child I have ever known. Apart from a very mild case of chickenpox in reception, she's barely been off school apart from a few hospital appointments.

The only time she's off is when she is so ill she won't eat. Once she came home from school and looked awful, high temp and she fell asleep on my bed, refused dinner and I kept her off the next day. She just slept all day.

The other time she was off was when she projectile vomited her dinner down the stairs - unfortunately I was at the bottom of the stairs and got covered. Half-regurgitated noodles sliding down your face at 1am is not the best experience in the world! She was kept off for the required 48 hours although she was absolutely fine by the next day and I basically had a bored hyperactive child bouncing around the house demanding to go back to school!

If they have a high temp, fever, can't stay awake, off food or vomiting then they stay off. Otherwise, off they go.

Yes to the 'off food'. I know full well that if dd is eating, then she's not really that ill!

The attendance percentage is not relevant to the decision about whether someone is too ill to be at school though.

If you are too ill for school you don't go. Regardless of previous absence.

High temperature, D&V, lots of pain or chicken pox.

I keep my DDs off school if they are even slightly under the weather, because I know full well from experience, that if I send them in then, I'll just get a phonecall soon after asking me to fetch them home again. I couldn't give a shit about attendance rates. The school doesn't want ILL (fucking spell checker won't let me type that word in smallcase!) children there, ergo they stay at home.

Even temperature is dependent on the individual: dd had a really low body temperature so by the time she was running a temperature of 38 she was actually quite ill, by the time it was nudging towards 39 she would be delirious.

Agreed, Buttered I never ever consider attendance percentage. It's irrelevant to the health of a child. Our school don't even calculate it until the end of the summer term.

Mine don't tend to have time off school because they rarely get sick. This year so far both have 100% attendance, and would need to be truly unwell before having time off. Stuff like coughs and colds they can go in with unless they're running a high fever alongside, or needing constant medication.

I work in a Reception class, though, and often think when they're that little a day off when they're genuinely unwell can prevent them becoming even more unwell and needing far more time off. Tough call, but schools do send them home if they're too ill to be there.

My daughter's TA had a bit of a rant the other day (completely inappropriate, but that would be another thread) about people who send their kids in with coughs, runny noses and mild temps: it sets up a domino effect of ill kids, some of whom will get it worse than others. A parent may worry about their own child's attendance record, but the decision to share their germs with the rest of the class has an impact on the whole class attendance record. It's also a bit pointless to send a child to school if they're not capable of participating - better that they get the rest in order to recover more quickly, rather than soldier on and end up slightly ill for a couple of weeks.

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Yes, this is all well and good but schools punish kids who have been off ill? Or they do here, only those with 100% attendance have treats, regardless of the reason for anyones absence. There was a bit of a todo not long ago at hubbys kids school as there was a child who had some form of cancer and had been off for treatment and missed out on a day out because of that..and I agree that seems harsh. People can't help being ill.

I have to say I get really annoyed when I see parents dragging their obviously sick kids into school though as its obvious 9 times out of 10...your kid will then come down with the same thing in a day or two. I had a go at a mum a while back for this at the nursery. She dropped her (ghostlike) child at the front door and said to the teacher 'shes been nonestop puking all night but hasn't been sick for an hour, ring me if shes too ill to stay' and went to flounce away. Ugh. Long story short I took DD back home rather than be around a bug like that and as it turned out like 15 of the kids in that class ended up with a tummy bug because of one parent being a tit. She didn't even have the excuse of not being able to get the day off work either as she doesn't work :/

I don't give two hoots about attendance figure. If my 5&6 yr old are even slightly unwell I don't send them. School is a long old day if you are little and under the weather; all they want is mummy/daddy/nanny. If my 13 & 15 yr old are rough I let them decide.

Also having to go to work is no excuse for sending children in ill.