100% attendance

[AgainstTheOddsNo2]

My daughter has just been sick and is currently devastated and not talking to me because I said she will have to stay home from school and lose her 100% attendance.

Fuck that prize!

Trifleorbust Sun 23-Apr-17 12:33:06
"I don't know whether I will get away with it. We will have to see. I certainly won't be encouraging any catastrophising, however. If other authority figures in my DD's life say things I think are unreasonable, I will ask her questions that encourage her to think through the issue for herself. I believe we will come out okay."

That's nice for you. I thought so too, before I realised that dd's health problems were chronic and that however many letters were submitted from consultants and physios pleading for understanding, the school was never going to let up about this.

Of course it is most likely this will never happen to you. But some children (statistically likely to be several in any given school) do have to live with the thought that their health problems are with them forever. In this situation, being made to feel that they are constantly letting someone down can be a very heavy additional burden.

I can assure you any catastrophising that happened to dd was on the part of the school (she won't be able to cope at secondary/won't be able to cope at college/won't be able to hold down a job). Sadly, dd believed them and tried to take her own life. Because what's the point if the people who are supposed to be experts tell you you can't manage with your body as it is and you know yourself that your physical situation can't be changed? Happily, she did not succeed and has gone on to prove them wrong on all points. I was the one who had to be persistently cheerful through all this. But it took her some time to accept that I might actually know more about life and its possibilities than her teachers did.

BadKnee, what exactly do you expect a 10yo who has just been diagnosed with an incurable disorder to take from being told that "this is the real world, might as well get used to it, nobody's going to show you any understanding there"?

How will it benefit a child of primary school age to think this?

Will it give them more courage to deal with their diagnosis on a daily basis, will it make them more inventive about solutions, will it enable them to suddenly get well?

Because this is basically what my dd was given to understand and it led to total despondency. My children never won any awards, and I don't mind that. What I do mind is the message that if you are chronically ill you might as well give up now.

No child imagines that they'll never get a job if they can't win the 400 yards hurdle race or get an award for best French scholar. No parent or teacher believes it either. But that is pretty well the message rubbed into children with serious health conditions and their parents.

I was lucky in one respect: I work in HE so I knew perfectly well that the at least the messages of "nobody is going to make allowances when she gets into HE" were wrong: we are shit hot on pastoral support and pride ourselves on it.

My dd is now 20, her health condition is still with her and it can make working life very difficult and probably always will, but she is dealing with that with an adult's mind and that is ok. She was not ready to deal with that aged 10 and she should not have had to.

corythatwas:

I am sorry she has had to deal with all of that. I don't want to speak out of turn (although I may well be doing so) but it sounds like your DD has had some really serious issues and, if I am absolutely honest, the presence or absence of an attendance award has probably been the least of her worries.

corythatwas (and badknee)

There are supportive employers out there too. I've been fortunate enough to work for several and have seen others benefit from that support - and have benefited myself as well. And the employers benefit too as they gain a loyal workforce willing to go the extra mile. The last place I worked for thought of itself as a family and, much as I was slightly cynical about that, I have to say that when the chips were down, when bad things happened to staff members, they showed up and did the right thing.

Please, if you think it will be any comfort, tell your dd that. Yes, the world of work can be tough, but it's not The Hunger Games everywhere.

My son has PDA, our experience of "support" is teachers and support workers not listening, not understanding and pointing out that he has to live in the real world.
By not supporting him, and by continuing to award attendance on top of everything else, he is being clearly shown that the real world doesn't want him, isn't interested in helping him reach his potential, and is only interested in the children who can succeed with minimal input.
This is what things like attendance awards cement in the minds of our children. They cannot build resilience without being shown that they are worth bothering with, and not even making it to the start line tells our children clearly where their place is.
I suspect though that unless you have a child who is personally upset and affected by this, it will be difficult to understand how damaging it is.

Trifleorbust Sun 23-Apr-17 13:22:01
corythatwas:

"I am sorry she has had to deal with all of that. I don't want to speak out of turn (although I may well be doing so) but it sounds like your DD has had some really serious issues and, if I am absolutely honest, the presence or absence of an attendance award has probably been the least of her worries."

It wasn't the award in itself (how many times do I need to repeat this?); it was the message that went with the awards. The message that unless you manage to meet attendance targets you are letting the school down and letting yourself down. That is what makes it different from the hurdles' prize or best French scholar's award: this is a prize that everybody is under the expectation to win, regardless of whether it is physically possible.

Dd is not an ungenerous person and never was: she could clap as hard as anyone at the news that somebody else had got the starring part in a play or had won a sports' prize. That's the way she was brought up and I think I can say we've done a good job there.

But everybody knows that attendance is not a prize in the sense that it's ok not to win: it is a target that schools anxious for their Ofsted outstanding rating can't afford you to fall short of. You know it because they tell you so. I wish the school had allowed her to regard it as a prize that she could be philosophical about not winning.

Thanks, Spudlet: dd is actually finding out exactly that- that the world of work is not the Hunger Games it was made out to be. She has been working for well over a year in quite a stressful job and has managed fine. Besides she knows if she can't cope with this particular job she can hand in her notice and look for another one. It's so much easier than being at school. If a customer shouts at her (as inevitably happens in that line of work), she doesn't have to take it personally because she doesn't believe in customers as authority figures, the way she believed in teachers, aged 10. She can smile and answer according to instructions and forget about it.

corythatwas:

Fair enough, but I have already said that that message is inappropriate.

What do the teachers say when they hand out the awards in your school, Trifle? Do they treat it as just another competition and manage to sound philosophical about the fact that not all can win? Because if so, well done them!

It was his headteacher who uttered the words "Yes, we do understand that corydd is ill, Mrs Cory, but you cannot expect us to be happy about it "

As opposed to the Cory family who were ecstatic at the news???? Ffs! !

That was exactly what I thought, MommaGee.

corythatwas:

They just congratulate the recipient. Not sure what else they would do to be honest!

I hate these awards. punishing kids for being ill...its ridiculous. Then you have parents sending in their obviously ill children just so they have 100% attendance and spreading the illness to every other kid in the class. Its stupid.

You're minimising Cory's DDs experience, Trifle, and then you say you agree the message is wrong - but the message is implicit in the awards. The awards say loom at all the children who are well, they are the ones worth rewarding, they are the ones who will succeed in life and if you ill dc cannot just get on with it and decide to beat your illness then we have no time for you. The rewards may be a badly photocopied bit of paper, but there is a sinister message underneath: only the healthy are worthy. And however much you say children should be resilient and put a game face on about these things, most children are not able to be and this kind of thing can affect them for years to come (I know this as I was that chronically ill child being told I wasn't trying hard enough.)

I suspect that if your dd cam home in tears having been beat up by a boy in her Y5 class because she 'lost them the attendance treat yet again' then you might just feel the issue was worth a bit more time and thought. But obviously my dd was merely a bit delicate and I hadn't worked hard enough on her resilience, a child with three chronic health conditions and multiple appointments.
My dd never ever won an attendance award. She got used to sitting in near empty classrooms doing extra work when her classmates were at the cinema or on a picnic. Because that really helps a child who has enough struggles in life already.

I am sick and tired that attendance awards are still a thing. Do we have so little empathy and compassion as a society? I am tired of the argument that 'but thats the only award little Johnny ever gets' - if that is the case then Johnny's school seriously lacks any kind of imagination, because attendance awards do not reward anything a child has actually worked for. They reward blind luck and lend credence to a dark message about value.

Madhairday:

I've already explained multiple times that I see these arguments, but I don't see it in such extreme terms. If someone beat up my child I would be angry whatever the reason. I wouldn't blame the policy on praising attendance for the fact that a child decided to be violent.

"Not sure what else they would do to be honest!"

But people have told you what many schools do. They basically imply that to be ill is a personal failure. That's actually inherent in the whole concept of the certificate scheme, it isn't an accidental side-effect. You can't just dream up a hypothetical situation where attendance certificates are handed over in sealed envelopes with minimal fuss, and say 'well I'm not bothered about that' - as you've surely read, that's not how many schools handle it. One of our local schools makes it into a sodding version of Strictly - headmistresses announces to assembled school and parents: 'now Betty here has had 100% attendance for 1 whole year. But no, we can do better than that! Little Mary has had 100% attendance for TWO years. But we can do even BETTER THAN THAT!!! Little Kevin has had 100% attendance for FOUR YEARS!!! Isn't that AMAZING?!!!!' It's truly repulsive.

Trifle, can you really not work up the empathy to understand that if you are a 10yo child who has been given a life sentence of poor health, who has to endure daily pain and invasive medical treatment, it is not necessarily easy to shrug off suggestions by the adults in authority that you are letting the side down? Has getting upset about it really got to be described as "thinking in extreme terms"?

And how easy do you think it is to "move on" when you know that, as far as the pain goes, and the hospital visits, and the necessity of disappointing your teachers and schoolmates, the situation is not going to be any different next week or the week after or next year?

My ds (before he too became ill) actually did get an attendance award. It was the only award he was likely to get as he struggled equally with academic and sporty performance. I would still have preferred that he had not been awarded for something that was pure chance. It set up the idea in his mind that good health was an achievement- which did not help when he was later diagnosed.

I honestly wouldn't bother arguing with Trifle, Cory. I've yet to notice her change her mind on any thread, no matter how many people's opinions she hears.

(And I believe her child is at the tiny and portable stage, when most of us saw parenting in mostly hypothetical terms.)

Yes, I myself will be a fantastic parent to my three teenagers. They will be impeccably polite at all times, astonishingly well-behaved and always do the washing up when asked. They will never argue with me and never retire to their rooms for days on end, but instead entertain their parents with stimulating conversation and witty repartee whenever required. They will also cook me dinner without complaint every evening. I think teenagers who rebel must have very...inadequate parents.

Mine was staggeringly pleasant and polite to me this evening, Zoemaguire. I wonder what he wants?

I should imagine just to please you, FlyingSquid, as he knows that you are the light of his life?

I also just don't really see why people get so het up about when their teenagers stay out past their curfew - surely you just tell them they must be in on the dot of 9pm, and that is that? What harm could they possibly come to while they sit in the library reading edifying texts?

I've only skim read the thread, but I hate the wole 100% attendence thing - especially when schools send children home who are unwell.

My DS got a 100% attendence certificate - big thing made of it in assembly etc. My dd, who didn't get one was absolutely distraught that he had one and she didn't. No matter that she had been so wheezy she couldn't breathe very well and the GP told me in no uncertain terms that she wasn't fit for school.

ds has been ill - it just so happened that he was ill over the Christmas holiday!

Well she was still anxious over it this morning but went in ok. I've promised her the world and told her again and again that it's not her fault.

As much as other parents wish their child could read better or be better at maths or have better handwriting (all stuff a school would actually support them with) I wish dd could handle her emotions better. Her old school used to be brilliant with it. It didn't take them a huge amount of effort and her confidence soared.

And by handle her emotions better I don't mean she is a tantrum thrower or will disturb the school in any way. She gets anxious and withdrawn. Pushed she may silently cry. But it's ok it's not a major problem because she is not disruptive

I work in a primary school and I bloody hate attendance rewards.
A kid in my class last year was an excellent, conscientious student, with 100% attendance up until March when her nan died quite suddenly. She was devastated as they were very close.
She came into school the next day and was so upset we had to send her home, just for a day. She came in every day, even on the morning of the funeral, just missing the afternoon, because she wanted to be at school. That was it.
At the end of term, when they all stood up in assembly to get their 100% certificate she didn't get one.
Then, obviously, as a knock on effect, she didn't get a whole year one.
Her little face when she didn't get called out brought a tear to my eye.
She's just an example that springs to mind,
And that's not even mentioning children who are ill, who have a domestic issue that means getting to school is sometimes difficult or those whose parents can't be arsed to drag themselves out of bed.
There are plenty of those in every school, believe me.

It's a crap idea - it should be based on a target, not a finite number of days.