To write back in defence to Head?

[kkrpainmum]

So the school my kiddies go to has a new Head Teacher this year. It is a small, gentle primary school that has always been very nuturing, but I, together with many other parents are finding the new Head difficult. My DD is a bright happy child who does well academically, sports wise etc. at school. At the very beginning of term, she picked up a diarrhoea bug and poor thing was very sick with it and was off school for just over a week (school policy being 48 hours after the last diarrhoea or vomit). I spoke to school daily to keep them in the loop and also requested for work to be sent home - but none came.

Last week I recieved THE most extraordinary letter from the new Head saying shed been reviewing attendance and DD attendance for the first half of term was 76% ( 7 out of 60 something days) and the government recommendation was 95% to ensure she was keeping up academically. She said in a very threatening tone that she personally would be keeping an eye on DDs attendance henceforth and if it was not up to scratch DH and I would be hauled in to defend ourselves to her AND the school homelink worker (with vague further threats)!!!

I think the thing that has riled me the most is that when DD was ill I actually went in and talked to the Head about it because I was so worried about DD.

It's not as if we had gone on holiday or I just felt like keeping DD at home for shits and giggles, or that the Head didnt know about WHY Dd was off - she was genuinely very sick.

AIBU if I were to write a pretty strongly worded letter in defense telling this new Head where to stick it? Am positively raging, or is this normal practise? The old Head teacher would never ever have done anything like this when a child was ill, so AIBU because essentially we've been spoiled and this type of letter is normal practise regardless of the reason for absence?

I don't think the "automatically generated" excuse works. It's not hard for someone to engage their brain before signing and sending out such letters; or to have two types of letter, one for the ones they think are taking the piss and one for the others.

What do you think parents should do with sick children then Pink, send them in anyway to keep their attendance over 90%?

op has explained child had d and v. What was she supposed to do send vomiting child to school so that attendance figures are better - utter madness!
Also this is primary school not year 11.

D and V doesn't usually lead to weeks off.

Was about to post the same as WouldHave. Why should parents have to accept/ignore these letters? It can be stressful enough dealing with ill kids without then getting a letter like that, automatically generated or not. I'd reply in the strongest possible terms. And probably send the letter back with it!

I'm sure if your child was ill for so long it will be on their medical records. I'd just ignore the letter tbh. They are auto generated and the school have to send them after so many absences.

Tempting as it is to send a reply as per the image, I'd suggest writing a polite email. Maybe say that you found the tone of the original unpleasant but, as PPs said, it's likely automated. Definitely reply via email to ave it on record that your child was ill from x to y with z symptoms.

You've had mostly good advice here with some nonsense about wing clipping.

FWIW, I'm a head.

You are overreacting and BU. Schools are under immense pressure to raise attendance levels or else OFSTED will be down on them like a tonne of bricks. Asking for work when a child is ill, especially when they are only at primary level is just silly.
Headteachers need to make the expectations of attendance very clear to parents. YOur reaction is a bit childish and ranty, tbh.

Pink - no it doesn't usually, but in this case it did, so what's your point?
I volunteer in a primary school and some kids have pretty poor standards of hygiene and it's sensible to ensure child has fully recovered before sending them back.

Surely this is just an automated letter? Not a personal attack.

I had a similar email from school with an attachment called 'below 95% attendance' last week. The letter was not addressed to me, didn't tell me which child it was or what their % was!

I worked out it was DS1 as he was off genuinely ill for 3 days in a block earlier this term. But surely it wouldn't take much to do a mail merge on the letter too would it?!

Must admit I was rather pissed off, particularly with the generic letter. Why don't they take into account that the attendance 'clock' restarts in september so a small absence will disproportionately affect the %age at this stage of the year. Perhaps also see that DS2 was in school so we clearly weren't on holiday and that DS1 usually has a good attendance record.

I am in two minds about whether to silently seethe at the crapness of it all or whether to politely point it all out and tell them what I think. DS1 is in yr11 and i don't much care what the attendance woman thinks of me. Any thoughts?

I know it's annoying but I think it's something school need to do. My ds has chronic illness, so we received lots of those letters. Nice touch from school was to attach the note saying "it's just formality, just don't worry about it".
It would be nice if all the school done that to parents they knew it's genuine illness related absences, but maybe not realistic.
If it was me, I wouldn't write letter, just have a chat with head.

Surely 76% is more than just the one week for the bug?

You'd make yourself look very silly if you sent the head a stroppy letter.

Schools are forced to send these letters home. Surely you know that?

And most teachers are of the opinion that if the child is well enough to be working at home, frankly, they're well enough to be at school, so you kind of shoot yourself in the foot with the going in and asking for work tbh.

The schools are just ticking boxes. It's to stop parents who don't actually give a shit (no pun intended) whether their kids are in school or not from not sending them.

It's really no biggie, but you should work with the school, not against them and it's unfortunate at such an early stage in your child's academic life to become "that" mother.

I would make an appointment and have a face to face discussion.

Write back politely. If people don't push back, schools will continue to write inappropriate letters to the parents of sick children and send them at the taxpayers' expense.

A friend of mine whose child had cancer got one of these. She was absolutely furious; fortunately she isn't a shrinking violet, and the head got a proper dressing down, but imagine the psychological distress caused if such a letter had been sent to a less assertive parent coping with their child's leukaemia diagnosis? Needless to say, the school's way of dealing with these thing got changed.

Government policy is no excuse; schools have a choice over how they implement it.

Pinklimonade
The op said it was one week. As you have to keep the child off 24/48 hours after the last bout of D&V it could very easily be one week.

Op. my daughter got a similar letter when she had a really bad chest infection. I had kept the school informed including updating them with the GPS advice. When I contacted the school to check if this was actually an issue given that it was one longer bout of illness rather than persistent lateness or absence, the school confirmed it was a standard letter and I should ignore it.

It is more than one week though... 76% is 24 sessions so 12 days which is over 2 weeks.

And most teachers are of the opinion that if the child is well enough to be working at home, frankly, they're well enough to be at school

Utterly stupid comment which helps explain how schools get away with this.

The 48h rule for D&V ensures that many perfectly healthy children are kept off school at the school's insistence.

And even children in hospital may be capable of some schoolwork; my friend's son with leukaemia had in-hospital tutoring.

I agree with the let them get better comments, but once the DC have stopped vomiting and are better, they still need to stay home for another 2 days because of infection control-and it does feel like they could do something school work related for a couple of hours on both those days. Surely it's more work for teachers to get children up to speed once they get back to school?

Anyway, I'd just write a couple of lines back reminding the head that your dc was sick, not truanting and you'd like to check that the absences were recorded as such.

The letters are automatically generated and have to be sent to parents. Ofsted will question any school that isn't seen to be targeting attendance. Teachers and heads are pawns in the ofsted attendance game too.

76% is low over a half term but by the end of the year it should be back up near 95%.

Please don't ask for work. If your child isn't well enough to be in, they shouldn't be working. Asking for work puts and extra pressure on the teacher to produce something that is often left not done, not marked and is a waste of everyone's time. Same if you go on holiday, don't ask for work.

I thought most places had got rid of the 48hr rule due to the most infectious period being before the illness not after?

Our school has no such rule (secondary).

76% is 24 sessions

I think it's 14/60 so 7 days.

I'm always perfectly happy with the 24/48 hour rule. If my child has been vomiting and had diarrhoea for several days I prefer they have a day or so before I send them back in for a full day with hockey or swimming or whatever else they should be participating in.
Recuperation.

Dd has a child with a chronic illness who hasn't been in school this year yet, of course he does schoolwork at home.

I'm referring to the 48 hour bug kind of illness. Obviously.

Schools are damned if they do and damned if they don't. I expect many people would be (IMO rightly) up in arms if teachers insisted that children as young as primary age did schoolwork while they were ill. When dd first started primary, and still suffered a fair bit with tonsilitis, I went and asked her teacher if she should try and catch up at home, and her teacher said of course not, if she's ill, she's ill, she needs to concentrate on getting better not on doing sums.

So stupid comment backatcha.

It's a generic letter. I get them all the time as DD is off for 6-8 weeks at a time when she has operations (she's had 4 in the past 3 years) and unfortunately gets ill quite a bit.