To be pissed offer that dd is on attendance watch.

[Fantasticday69]

So Dd2 is in year 7. She had a really bad tummy bug near the start of the year. So she had the required 2 days off.
Now because her attendance is only 89% she is on attendance watch.
Aibu to be annoyed as it is just bad timing. 2 days off later in the year would not trigger such an event but it is still the same level of absence.

Does anyone else feel that teachers and schools make up a lot of useless shit and if they just applied a little common sense they might get to go home a bit earlier and wouldn't be so stressed

Schools have to do all this 'useless shit' because their data is scrutinised and constantly compared with accepted standards and with other schools. They have to find ways of competing and making their data look good, or they fail to attract pupils and they lose money. Nobody enjoys doing this 'useless shit', I assure you. Why the hell would they do it if they weren't made to? Just for fun?

The idea of being allowed to teach and run schools according to common sense is quite frankly utterly hilarious in the current system.

Say for example the threashold for a term works out at 2 days absence being the maximum. Then no-one gets triggered into an absence monitoring situation until they've been off 3 days. So if that third day happens in week 2 or week 8, the result is the same, but the pupil who was off for two days in week 1 and not off again never gets into the system at all. That seems right to me.

Persistent absence is still highlighted (either rightly or wrongly) but absence that goes above just because of the way its calculated doesn't.

Why are people getting so het up about getting a letter? If you don't think it's a problem, just bin it. Sorted.

It's not just a letter anymore, Bertrand.

You have to go in a meeting at the school now, as well as providing "medical evidence" for anything over 1 day off sick. My GP is going love that.

*at my DS's school, anyway.

I agree with attendance rewards being unfair for children with illness/ disability and whilst attendance needs to be measured and monitored for obvious reasons, these generic letters and rewards systems are not the best ways to deal with it.

Low attendance can be dealt with privately. I can't see how peer pressure will help the children when it is the parents who are the issue.

It is actually even harsh to children with a difficult home life who parents perhaps can't be arsed to get them to school, or whose lives are chaotic affecting attendance. So much is beyond a child's control that rewarding luck or bad luck just seems mean, and the opposite of empowering.

And it is the taking of enough time to personally criticise and comment , and yet being so utterly impersonal by not recognising context that grates with me.

But then, I guess it is like many modern things; it is easy and cheap to keep track with a spreadsheet or database and easy and cheap to generate a generic, impersonal letter with the intention of being seen to do something. Yet is it really doing anything? Other than make conscientious people feel bad!

Persistent absence is still highlighted (either rightly or wrongly)

In what situation would persistent absence be wrongly highlighted?

Does this mean every child in Northern Ireland is on attendance watch now because they have all just missed two days off school.

These things make me so angry....why does the state only accept their decisions as having validity

Schools have always been able to identify and manage poor attendance for decades without these ridiculous policies. Children who are ill should never been treated this way.

Of course not, Basecamp

When schools are closed - whether for the holidays or at short notice - it's not an absence

In what situation would persistent absence be wrongly highlighted

If the child has known health conditions as has been discussed frequently on this thread and others. The school pointing out that little Amy who has CF has been absent a lot is hardly going to be news and them monitoring her isn't going to help the situation i would imagine.

My DS went in last year first day then ended up in hospital so by the end of the week his attendance was 25% .. I don't think he had any more time off that year possibly a tummy bug so fine over a year.
This year I will be keeping him off one day as he has a ADHD appointment which he needs to be unmedicated for so believe me they won't want him there before medication.

The thing is with all of this is we all know the kids in our year that take the day off for a sniffle or a day trip out . We know the kids that are late because I see them regularly as I walk home from school after the bell has gone and it is usually the same people. I am certain the office staff are aware. percentages are a pointless measure at the beginning of the year .. I would sooner the resources are spent on supporting targeting those children to get them into school .

If the child has known health conditions as has been discussed frequently on this thread and others.

I think you misunderstand the reasons why schools may want to highlight persistent absence. For a child who cannot be in school for medical reasons, for example, but is well enough to learn, school can make a referral to the LA's home tutoring service (called access to education here).

When DD1 (year 2) had the chicken pox she was off 8 days it was terrible she was very close to been admitted to hospital DD3 was and we are very lucky that she is still here I was called up by her head on her 2nd day off and threated with fines and council action if I didn't take her to the doctors for a fucking note she was sent home because she and chicken pox it doesn't vanish over bloody night! I didn't take her I explained all the dangers of chicken pox I wasn't very nice on the phone DD3 had been out of hospital for 4 days. School knew because DD1&2 were fitted into after school clubs and left school early to say their goodbyes to DD3. There is only 80 kids in the school so the head knew and I was head of the pta (note the was) DD1's teacher was horrified when I told her. It's all turned into ticking boxes and turning children into robots.

What annoys me the most is waiting till after lunch to be send home when they are ill and asking to be brought in for morning tick if they have a morning appointment! The teacher are amazing it's the only reason my DC are still at that school.

I would seriously suggest you write to the headteacher, copying it to the Chair of Governors, to point out that there is an inherent flaw in their system if they are calculating attendance at a percentage of only the first few school days in the year, because the percentage will obviously be skewed by that. Apart from anything else, they are giving themselves needless work monitoring attendance stats which they must know aren't accurate.

It would make much more sense to do this as a running total, i.e. calculate the absence as a percentage of, say, the last 50 or 100 school days. For children who have only just started at the school, work on the same basis but assuming full attendance for the period when they weren't on the roll.

The difficulty is is that every parent gets annoyed that it's monitored or questioned because they know their child was really sick and the word of the parent should be enough.

Just because you know you're telling the truth doesn't mean that should be accepted without question or monitoring because not everyone else is telling the truth.

I work in healthcare and we discharge people for 2 incidents of non attendance. And when we do we get outraged phonecalls from people saying they didn't get the letter or they were ill and couldn't use a 'phone or their car broke down and they had no credit to call or a family member died and on and on. And I'm sure some of those people are telling the truth but when you hear it all the time (and it is often proved to be untrue) what is the alternative? You have to have a policy that applies to everyone.

And most people agree there should be policies or monitoring apart from when it applies to them...because they're telling the truth and agencies should have some psychic ability to tell the difference.

This fascinates me as clearly attendance does need to be monitored, and clearly you can't expect the school office staff to only chase up people they think are lying or are a bit rubbish at parenting. You have to have a clear rule and follow it, even it it scoops up well loved children with legitimate reasons But schools do it in very different ways. My child was off 3 weeks for various reasons and there were no red letters. There are no attendance rewards or parties. The school has good attendance but seems to tackle it differently.

Tbh I an just going to let it go. Dd2 is new to the school and Dd1 is still there. Plus Dd2 really isn't bothered.
Really good to read other people's thoughts in this subject though.

Your trust is generous with 2 incidents all. For some local services they discharge if you fail to turn up once or if you turn down 2 appointments.

Bit late with my response suburban, please don't give me a 'tardy'

Common sense is not encouraging parents to send sick children to school to get attendance money or to avoid a visit from the truant officer. It's looking at attendance trends for a child, not simply X days off gets you on the 'naughty list'. It's providing a way for children with chronic health problems or disabilities to document those problems to qualify for modified attendance rules. It's providing 'family absence' for funerals or other family occasions with documentation. I'd also like to see a limited number of days away provided for holidays with work being sent along to do, at least in the 'early years'. I know that in Jr High and High School (again I'm in the US) the rapid rate of learning expected might make this impractical.

All these things seemed to work when my sons were in school.

Sorry haven’t RTFT but this really irritates me.

What about the mum the other day that wanted her son to have day off so that the could hang out? These are the sorts of reasons why attendance monitoring is in place.

We have kids that don’t come in because they were up too late playing computer games the night before, because they wanted to go on a shopping trip on their actual birthday, because they missed the bus. These are the reasons others get followed up.

Yes - the letter has been sent a little prematurely but schools are under such pressure with attendance and potential issues need to be flagged early.

Exactly OP. There has to be a line or a policy. And it'll piss some people off as they KNOW they're telling the truth and in the right because of x, y and z but there has to be a line or a policy because otherwise it's chaos.

I think you misunderstand the reasons why schools may want to highlight persistent absence.

No, I think you've misinterpreted what I said. I was talking about highlighting absence to the parents which is what the thread is about. Highlighting the issue of persistent absence to the parent of a child who has no specific health issues that you are aware of is perfectly fine. Highlighting it to parents who can do nothing about it is a waste if time and counterproductive. I would presume that you are already supporting that child to make the most of the available educational resources.

Children who have low attendance are often without adequate support at home.

Someone I know was badly disabled following a stroke a few months ago. She's a single mum and couldn't even get to her bathroom, never mind take her kids to school (6 & 8, so too young to do a walk that involves crossing at least 2 very busy roads).

She had a hotch potch arrangement of friends who took them, but this broke down quite often. It flagged up the "lack of adequate support at home", but fuck all was done as a result. The LEA makes no provision for school transport for children of disabled parents, couldn't get the kids a place at the school 200 yards away and Adult Social Care couldn't help because the need wasn't an adult's need.

Flagging up a support need is only any use if that need can then be met.

You have to go in a meeting at the school now, as well as providing "medical evidence" for anything over 1 day off sick.

I'd suggest a bagful of snotty tissues when they've had a cold, or a freezer bag of puke following an upset stomach.

Thanks for your suggestions, across.

I can only speaks for my school, but in answer to your suggestions:

I don't know what "attendance money", so I can't comment on that. Truancy patrols were stopped last year here, to save money.

You would not believe the detail in our attendance monitoring. Trends are just part of it. We have one member of staff working almost exclusively on analysing the data and providing returns to the governors. Day to day, absences are broken down so we can see, for example, if a child always has certain days off or "broken weeks" (at least a day a week off).

We can provide flexi-schooling agreements for children who can't be in school. Children can have time off for family funerals. We also authorise the vast majority of holiday absences up to 5 days but it does depend on previous attendance. Some parents will still want more than this, though.

Work packs to take on holiday is a tricky one though. Teachers don't have time to translate lessons into worksheets nor mark the work on the child's return, when the rest of the class have moved onto a new topic. Not sure what the answer is to that but I know one school where the head asked parents to mark the work and send it back marked!

It's worth remembering that academies and free schools are tougher on attendance. Community schools like ours, less so. But none of us like being lied to, as is so often the recommendation on here when someone wants to take their child out of school for a duvet day.