Fucking BIKES for 100% attendance?? Has the world gone mad??

[FizzyCherry]

I know this is the whole 100% attendance thing again, but I have literally seen it all now.
Not one but TWO people on my FB time line have posted pics of their kids with brand new bikes awarded for 100% attendance. AIBU to think that's taking the piss now?

The weird thing is, it's not the same school, not even the same county - they don't know each other, one parent is an old school friend in the South West, the other a former colleague in the north.

In each case, every child with 100% attendance was given a raffle ticket, the prize was a new bike. Only one prize, apparently, so none of this whole class goes to the zoo thing.
Both are primary school age, one Yr 2, the other Y4.
So these are two that I know of, how many other children are being given something that some of their peers is can only dream of, just for turning up?

My school dropped attendance certificates this year as they were felt to be divisive. How divisive is spending £100 on just one kid?

Am I missing something here, or what?

I think my daughters school give out certificates for 100% attendance (she has never had one but has only been off when ill) I think at the end of each term. They seem unfair to me unless they count time off for illness/hospital appointments etc as beyond the child's control and therefore count them as attendance.

However they also have a certificate assembly each week where they issue awards for lots of other things and allow children to bring in certificates etc they have gained out of school.
They have a daily reward system in the classroom and can be moved up the chart for behaving well, doing good work, trying hard, being kind or helpful etc. (They can also be moved down for bad behaviour) It all starts afresh the next day. Three awards from the teacher means they get a certificate from the head in an assembly.

It seems fairer to me as it means every child the opportunity to rewarded for something.

Don't agree with big rewards like a bike. I can remember in my first yr at comp ( 25+yrs ago) I got an end of yr reward for effort and a £5 book token - I was happy.

Well if your child's school's got anything about it, Weebo your child WILL pick up trophies, but not necessarily for attendance.

You document it. 11th grandparent died? Kid says they're going on holiday when parent says it's a family emergency? You document it. You document mitigating history. Then you target those parents who are taking the piss. You don't do one size fits all stuff that discriminates against kids with genuine illnesses, long term or not. And you don't make out that being ill equates to not trying hard enough to come in.
Yes, it's all documented. We contact those parents, we phone, we visit, we send texts, we write letters, we have them in for meetings, we set up parenting contracts, we threaten fines. We occasionally report to LA or SS. We listen, we empathise, we encourage, we set up special plans and arrangements. We don't chase or give grief to the ones where we know things are going on. We find other ways to celebrate that child.

But they don't get no bike.

Do you want a suggestion KeepServing?

How about schools stand up to OFSTED and their shitty system and stop penalising the children and families who quite frankly have enough to deal with.

You can bet your arse that the kids who can't throw a bean bag or are bad at maths aren't getting shitty automated letters and notes in their bags about it.

I completely forgot until reading this that my secondary school did this. I think everyone with 100% attendance got a voucher or something and also entered into a raffle for a bike.

That's very practical and sensible advice Weebo. Thank you. I'll let my schools know that all they need to do is this; and that they can ignore both OFSTED and government [voted for by the populace] policy. And let the parents and potential families know we're doing this, so they'll know to ignore the OFSTED reports.

Problem solved! shame about all the threads on here quoting oftsed's reports

I wonder if having an 'allowance' of days to miss would help? Not quite sure how it would work, but basically work out how many days off would equate to say, having 97-98% attendance and tell parents that's their 'quota' for the year. Anything above that needs to be authorised by the relevant person, (e.g., you've used your quota of days, your child is ill, a dr needs to sign a note to say your child is too unwell for school), or whatever. It might work, but it is also A LOT of admin as you'd need to send home emails/reminders every so often saying how many days your child has used etc and I know how stretched schools are for time, so it may not be feasible. But maybe it would stop the blatant mickey taking whilst still allowing families a little bit of flexibility? I don't know. Such a complex issue. For some families, their kids genuinely do get ill a lot. For some, they can't be bothered to get out of bed to drop their kids to school. Is that the child's fault?! No. Such a complex issue.

Ignore my repeated use of the phrase complex issue.

Ah, there's that wonderful sensitivity the parents of children with SN's in mainstream school encounter often.

Is it any wonder people are so pissed off?

Keep up the good work - It's going so well so far.

Bless you, Early. Good thought. School's kind-of do this.... Children are supposed to be at above 96%, but most schools have a threshold and they don't start hassling you until you reach it. Some schools it's 93%, some it's below 90%, etc. Depends on what the gvnrs decree and what your last OFSTED said about attendance.

Headteachers used to be allowed to authorise a set amount of time off each year (10 - 15 days from memory), so if there was a 'one-off' thing (think extended family abroad, so a 'big' holiday that lasted longer than a school holiday, or an amazing 'thing' like being selected for a sport or performing in a play or something). But a decree went out a few years ago, and headteachers aren't allowed to authorise this any more. Don't know if this was national or just in our local authority,but I seem to think it was national.

Yes, I remember when heads were allowed to authorise 10 days off a year... I think it is now not allowed nationally.

This is crazy. People get ill and have to go to funerals or hospital appointments or all sorts of valid reasons for being off. We don't have anything like this where I teach, though we do keep a close eye on attendance because ofsted make such a big deal of it. I met a teacher from another school yesterday who said their performance management (and therefore any chance to move up the pay scale) is partly based on the attendance figures of their form! That's just ridiculous in my view.

It would be interesting to find some stats (if there are any) about if, when heads were allowed to authorise 10 days, many children missed more than the 10 days per year...

I met a teacher from another school yesterday who said their performance management (and therefore any chance to move up the pay scale) is partly based on the attendance figures of their form

It's nonsensical. It has a negative impact on everyone and my heart goes out to those poor teachers.

But apparently, people think it works just fine.

Glad it's not just me who thinks it's ridiculous. I had a boy in my class last year (Yr 3) whose attendance was 82%, he never made it in five days in a row for the entire year.
He lived behind school, 3 minute walk, but policy is that anyone under Yr 5 must be accompanied by an adult to and from.
FLO looked into it, essentially mum couldn't be arsed to get up and take him every single day. He normally missed PE days because, according to mum when threatened with legal action, it's not like he was missing out on lessons (PE IS a lesson, plus it's only one lesson in a whole day).
Other days, he just didn't fancy school and his mum didn't bother to make him go.
I saw him one day, last day of term, at the park near school, he wasn't even bothered. He said "I forgot, I thought we broke up yesterday."
But come test results, he was in the top 2% for the year group in everything, seriously bright.

My point is, the minute he missed one day, he wasn't going to get any prizes at the end of the year. But if we paid more attention to working hard and progress, he may have.

To be honest, I don't think he even knew that we gave attendance prizes, he usually missed the last day of every term, but it might have made a difference.

I also know someone who got a bike for 100% attendance last year. That was north west London. It is ridiculous.

I still dont get the rage on here about it. I doubt that attendance is the only award given out at any school so kids can try for others if they have been ill or whatever.

Entry in to a prize draw sounds a great idea but id have it for anyone who got any award- attendance, sports, maths, attitude, improvement etc

Good god.
This is like employers who target something near the issue they are trying to solve and wonder why the issue remains afterwards.
The total idiotic thing here is that the problem kids that attendance needs to be encouraged in lose the chance of ever being rewarded on day off one, so the incentive ceases to have any effect at all on any aspect of the problem.
Of course if you see it as a preparation for life where all the rewards go to people who already have all the advantages by pretending they are somehow equally applied but only those with all the advantages can ever get them, then it's a win.
Fucking totally stupid 'rich get richer' policy with no gain for the school.
Nice one whoever thought that up...

Jesus.

These incentives are not like 'the harder you work the more money you get' they teach 99% of kids that if you're not in the 'all the advantages' club, you might as well give up on day one, as the result is the same, and you'll never have a chance.

I do think the attendance rewards are crap but I just don't make a fuss about them to the kids. I just say those children are 'lucky' they weren't poorly cos at the end of the day one day vomiting would have put a stop to that which is hardly something to punish? Like I said yesterday on another thread, one of my dds friends had been sick one night and her mother kindly sent her dd into school the following morning which then ended up with at least 16 kids in dds class ending up with the tummy bug. I had to go down and pick dd up and carry her to the car while she tried not to be sick. She could hardly stand and was nearly passing out. Pissed me off more than a certificate that a mother could be so irresponsible that she had spread this awful bug round a bunch of 6yr olds! It wasn't just contained to her class either. Some people are just thick as shit to be honest. I don't care too much about the awards, I care more that my dd suffered unnecessarily.
Plus I'm immunosuppressed so had I caught it I could have been really poorly.

This is also a bit like those employers who don't promote the people who do the job well, they promote the people with the nicest shoes, or who come in on time but are fucking useless or immediately make a coffee for everyone thus avoiding work

I just want to apologise to you KeepServing.

I got quite nasty there and it's honestly not the way I normally handle things.

I have taken things personally because these awards have caused my son to be mocked by class mates. He can't help it but kids pick up on this stuff and can be cruel.

As I said he's a good lad who is always happy for his friends. I'm just a defensive mum who hates that he has to feel bad about himself over something he has no control over.

Exactly that, scary. It's quite common for kids to be ill in the first few weeks of the year, because they're back in confined spaces with 20-odd others after six weeks of not being so.

So if it's meant to encourage attendance, but by the end of September you're already out of the running, there goes that incentive.

I understand why school are having a carrot approach to attendance, I just don't always agree with how it's done a lot of the time.
I can think of half a dozen students their year who are off regularly for no reason. We're tracking them, have had attendance meetings, governors have got involves, we've gone down the court route too. It has limited impact so a carrot approach might at least get the child pushing to attend.

To me, there needs to be a reward system but it needs to account for those who are medically unwell (e.g. a friend's school does juice and cake for 1 form in each year group with top attendance but they remove the bottom student from each class if there's a reason so it doesn't pull the average down).

*That's remove one student from the average calculation, not remove them from the class. They still get the reward.

School have to show that they are doing everything in their power to get children to attend, otherwise they fail their inspection. As many posters have said before, it is arbitrary and ignores valid reasons why children cannot attend. I was once forced to send a poor attendance letter to a family about a child's attendance knowing that the parent was terminally ill. Offering freebies such as bikes, iPods etc had no impact on actual attendance, but it did 'tick a box' for the inspectors. As for the cost, it will almost certainly come from a different pot of money which could not be used elsewhere on basics such as textbooks because of ring fencing.