Parents in East Sussex are being told to ‘Get a Grip’ via leaflet if their child is off sick for more than 3 days a term

[DingleBerries]

Will you sign the petition to stop this?

What absolutely arseholes. My friends son was admitted to hospital last week, he was in the high dependency unit and there were talks about intubating him.

This week she gets this in her DC’s book bag. Her nerves already in tatters she is told by East Sussex council to ‘Get a grip’, that other parents manage to get their kids to school and questions her ability.

Absolutely out of order, patronising, condescending and insulting.

Please sign the petition if you agree.

www.change.org/p/east-sussex-county-council-east-sussex-county-council-withdraw-the-get-a-grip-campaign-and-make-a-public-apology/w

I know if my mum had received that she'd have been like "get a hairpin?"

To target a campaign and make it effective costs a huge amount of money. To send out a leaflet to everyone, whilst entirely ineffective, is comparatively extremely cheap and it ticks the box that you have done something. If you don't like a society like this, then rather than whinge about leaflets, why not ask the question why one of the supposedly wealthiest countries in the world actually cannot afford for its public services to do anything other than tell everyone off? A country which is colossally unequal and has a growing proportion of people at the bottom of the social pile thanks to its chosen political policies gets what it deserves in terms of social problems. If you can't afford to pay more tax, or pay your employees more, then don't expect public services to work well or give the remotest fuck about your feelings.

I agree it’s badly thought out however as the parent of someone who had heaps of time off school eventually ending up with a tutor at home I can’t say anything the school said or did ever bothered me . I knew what I was doing was the correct thing for my child and I didn’t really care what anyone else said .

Medical appointments
Arrange them outside school hours.

Bloody hell, don't they know how hard it is to get a GP appointment? If you were picky about timings, you'd never get to see a doctor.

Oh dear god. Just glance through it and think ‘does this apply to me of not?’. If your child had been in hospital then clearky not.
No need for all the drama love.

It's a leaflet aimed at certain parents sent out to all so as not to discriminate.

Lots of parents do keep their children off for no valid reason and tpit can affect their adult life outcomes so they need to do something.

There are always parents who haven't figured out that going to the dentist/opticians etc can be done in the thirteen weeks holidays or at the weekend too.

Bloody hell Lakielady, that's shit.

I would also roll my eyes at the total waste of money this leaflet represents. I guess I may be one of the parents this would be aimed at, as ds's attendance isn't great despite largely rude health. However the last time I made a slightly unwell ds go in as I thought he was swinging the lead, the school sensibly rang dh at 10am as he was not coping in school (certainly not learning anything) and he was off for the next two days. Children are not machines and sometimes they are ill. A leaflet about confidence in your parenting would be more to the point, or of course more mental health/GP services.

Why do you think the attendance levels are so then in East Sussex? I don't know the area, you tell me.

That's a good question. There are some very deprived areas, not just in Hastings. Homelessness and housing need are surprisingly high. The roads and public transport are piss poor. There's a significant traveller population and school attendance tends to be low among traveller families.

School place allocation can be bizarre: a high number of 4-year olds one year led ESCC to add a whole extra form of entry to a school on the edge of town. I live on the other edge of town, so kids near me have a 50 minute walk or get 2 buses to school. Now, their younger siblings are making the same journey, and we have a primary school that I can see from my window, it's about 500 yards away.

But I have no idea why it should be significantly lower than anywhere else. Maybe ESCC should do a bit of research and see if they can work it out. Maybe the county just has a large proportion of feckless parents ...

I think I may have misunderstood actually.
Are these given to all parents or just when they miss 3 days of school? If it's the latter I can see why that is upsetting.

I would think it the schools fault for passing it on if they already know you have a doctors note/ hospital appointment.
If there is none of the exclusions in the leaflet formally given to the school by parents then it's fair enough.

These situations are crap. My Dd was off 2 days with vomiting and Diarrhea. We had a note in her planner saying she was on attendance watch, her attendance would've closely monitored and we got a letter from the slt also.
Why or why can't they use dome common sense?

@LakieLady adult social care are failing this woman too. The Care Act specifically states that if an adult cannot meet caring needs of another adult or child, they are eligible for services. Drop me a PM if you want more info.

Lakie... was the bungalow provided by the council or did she arrange herself?

Even if you could get an out of school appointment with a GP, you're not going to get one with a specialist consultant: they tend to do their clinics on one set morning of the week and that's it.

I think I may have misunderstood actually.
Are these given to all parents or just when they miss 3 days of school? If it's the latter I can see why that is upsetting.

Yes! The latter.

Every parent who’s child has missed 3 days has and will receive this leaflet.

I have not received this leaflet because my child hasn’t missed 3 days.... yet.

Oh dear god. Just glance through it and think ‘does this apply to me of not?’. If your child had been in hospital then clearky not.
No need for all the drama love.

Then why was she given the leaflet?

Love.

It also seems to suggest that parents cannot be trusted to assess whether their child is ill enough to stay off school, and so they should send them in anyway and let the school judge. I think that is ridiculous as unless the school is staffed by doctors they are no more qualified to make that call than the parent.

Plus it will lead to more illness because the ill ones will be in school being contagious! Which potentially has a particularly detrimental effect on children who have underlying health conditions, ie those who are already at risk of low attendance. It's moronic. As stupid as this piece of shit leaflet.

Piratesandpants Sat 04-Nov-17 11:28:24
"Oh dear god. Just glance through it and think ‘does this apply to me of not?’. If your child had been in hospital then clearky not.
No need for all the drama love."

Unfortunately if you have a child with an underlying health condition/lowered immune system, the encouragement to other parents to send their vomiting, coughing, diarrhoea-ejecting children into school is going to apply to you whether you like it or not.

I cannot be grateful enough that my eldest child has now passed out of the school system and into the far more understanding and sensible world of work and HE.

Were they trying to do a play on words or something? Grip means sick in other languages, not spelled that way, but pronounced similar.

Thank you everyone for your signatures.

It was 41 this morning and an hour or so again it was nearly 900.

I went to sign, but it wanted me to either contribute £4 or share on social media. So that can fuck off then.

What?! I did neither of those things and I signed it.

I signed without doing either of those things too.

My mistake, it seems I have signed!

my child has just come out of hospital after 2 weeks - she will need a further 10/14 days rehabilitation before even considering starting back at school - all the way along I have kept the school up to date

if I got one of these I wouldn't care a jot - sorry