Letters home to parents of Uni students?

[Butteredparsnip1ps]

Posting for traffic, and looking for perspective. AIBU is whether I have given DD the right advice.

DD1 is in first year of Uni and enjoying it. Likes the course, loved placement, works hard / plays hard. Today though, her group were subjected to an angry 20 minute rant about poor attendance and threatened with letters home to parents.

There are some ironies here. As DD said, what was the point of ranting at the people who had turned up, when those who were absent missed it? Also her group includes a number of mature students who have missed lectures due to childcare and family issues. Are they going to get letters sent home to their parents too?

Although DD is on top of her work, she was worried as she missed some sessions before Xmas and again at the end of January due to illness. She suspects she may have a letter sent home, and rang in a bit of a panic.

My slightly cynical opinion is that the course leaders have become aware of poor attendance overall and so the Tutors have had a verbal kicking that they have passed down to students.

FWIW DD is very driven and doesn't bunk off. If there were any issues as a result of her illness, it would be possible to ask the GP she saw to confirm it, and we would of course support her. My hunch actually is that the rant probably wasn't aimed people like her, but at habitual non-attendees.

But. She is an adult who is paying for her education, so frankly whether she turns up or not (and the consequences) are hers. Why on earth would a university send letters to parents? And what would happen to the mature students? Surely all students should be treated the same??

So AIBU, or just precious?

[AnnaCarr]

I work as a lecturer and have done in a variety of different Universities. It would be a breach of the data protection act to contact parents with information on attendance, performance or anything like that without the written consent of the student. Perhaps the students signed a form at the beginning of the year allowing this but didn't realise? I've never had a situation where I've got written consent from a student to contact their parent re attendance or performance. The only time that I've been asked to do something that I didn't feel was right was when working for a University College that took under 18's who turned 18 during the course. I was told to give them performance and attendance information at a parents evening and argued my case with the University that it was a breach of the data protection act and they argued that the parents had signed a form at the start of the course (when the student was under 18) and that valid for their entire time at the Uni/College. In the end I spoke to each student who was personally affected and we agreed together what would be said and also encouraged that they be there too with the parents - I didn't have to lie at any point as the students agreed that what I was going to say was 'fair enough'.

[Sodomeyes]

flumpy No, the lecturer wouldn't be in hot water for poor attendance at all. But it'd royally fuck up classroom dynamics and planned work tasks.

[flumpybear]

Sodo it's more the correlation between bad attendance and bad results of the course

[spinassienne]

my parents paid for my post grad studies (equivalent of Uni here), so did most of my friends parents. And parents received absence reports, grade reports etc. We were all between 18 and 25...

I've been in the French higher ed system for twenty years somethingborrowed and never had the slightest contact with any parents

[Totallybonkersmum]

It seems to be a first year thing to kick them up their bum, just before exam time. There's only so much you can cram if you don't have the notes. If you're off sick, you're encouraged to get a copy of a fellow students notes. The non attendees will get very low end of term marks and if they're too low, they may very well have to resit year one.