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 think many people just have fuck all empathy and fuck all sympathy for people who are managing to keep at it in the most difficult of circs.

And then enjoy making these spiteful little digs at people who are just fucking well doing their best.

Can't get past the 'book medical appointments after school', well unless you have private medical or dental treatment you get the appointment times you're given! What twat face wrote that?

I know it's nuts!

Person - the consultant operates their clinic Monday 9-2 and they issue you an appt to attend

This leaflet & the people who wrote it - well they can't go then. There is NO excuse for missing school. Hosp appts must be attended outside of school hours.

What's the matter with them?

Even more minor stuff like DDs orthoptist appts at the NHS clinic were only available in certain hours, when you're at hospital consultant level for something serious then you go when you're bloody well told. How do they not know this? Or do they just not care? Do they seriously want families to turn down these appts? It's made me quite angry. It's difficult enough to manage and deal with this stuff, without this crap.

. It also suggests that there is just minor illnesses and then serious illnesses, when in actual fact there is a whole range of illnesses and conditions which fall in between the two.

Yeah. When I was a kid I used to get a lot of ear infections & colds (nothing like the scale of some people ‘s experiences described here ). Once I was recovered to the extent of merely being a bit tired, I would go back to school but be allowed to sit out PE (no great hardship as I disliked PE ). All very sensible. Until we got the supply teacher who said, “If you’re well enough to be at school, you’re well enough to do PE.”

There was a thread the other year about pregnant women being asked about genital piercings as hand-waving over FGM. I suspect something similar is going on here. The hard core who let their kids not attend school routinely (or more to the point, don’t let them attend), are no doubt well known. But tackling it properly would be opening a can of worms - far better to make it all about parents being overprotective .

OnionShite Sat 04-Nov-17 20:22:01

"Often individual schools are responding to pressure placed on them from above."

See, I don't get this. My own job depends just as much on the performance of my students and is far, far less secure than that of the average teacher, but I just could not treat an adult student who was struggling with their health with the lack of empathy that was meted out to my own daughter aged 10. Stress or no stress, pressure or no pressure, resilience or no resilience, I do not want to go through life knowing that I'm behaving like a shit in my professional role. If people can, then they must be a good deal tougher than me.

I think social services / educational services in LA's treat parents like scum and thats the bottom line.

I have to say, it seems like that to me, too. Especially in East Sussex.

@grimeofthecentury Agree. Resilience is being a small child who during a sick bug will test their blood every hour 24 hours a day for glucose and ketones, knowing that if they can't keep sugar down they may end up on a drip to prevent a coma or worse. That they may need the big orange box needle in a muscle as well as the six injections they give themselves a day because they may have a seizure. That they may go dangerously low for a fortnight afterwards because their sick bug has lasting and unpredictable effects on their digestion. Resilience is allowing your child to get an education despite knowing that it exposes them to this. Material from a local authority which a) is insensitive b) exposes them to more risk is fucked up. Being cross about it doesn't show lack of resilience.

The attendance policies were surely brought in to help identify people who were struggling so that they could get the right support. This is so far down the rabbit hole...

How many signatures does this petition need before they can’t ignore it?

Because it’s nearing 10,000 now....

I hate the 'missing only one day serious impacts your child's achievement'. Utter bullshit. The research it is supposedly based on groups all kids who have had any form of absence up to 5 days in one block together so you simply can't make that statement. The zero absence group is 100 times smaller than this group and no amount of controlling for other factors is going to completely negate this huge difference in sample sizes.

If East Sussex has been able to make a specific arrangement with local hospital and GPs that all clinics potentially involving children will run after 3.30 p.m., that statement about medical appointments might be justifiable. If they haven't, they need to remove it immediately.

'missing only one day seriously impacts your child's achievement'.

Yes - and what a kick in the teeth for parents with children with chronic or serious illnesses. Not only are they having things like multiple appts, pain, operations, uncertain future, but also here's the council telling you unequivocally that they will never amount to anything in terms of qualifications and so employment etc. The more I think about it, the nastier it is.

I had months and months out through secondary school with multiple surgeries in childrens hosp in London, my qualifications are fine, I've got a degree and now I do a good job which I enjoy. What a grim, nasty message to families in these positions.

I also note that bereavement is not given as a valid reason for any time off school.

Plus I'd be VERY interested in seeing the the work records for the people who made these rules and the council generally. Do they all have a 100% attendance record? Of course they fucking well don't. Do they think children are robots, that they won't need a single day off sick over X years at school, how do they imagine that works? Our school recently had a sickness bug that affected about 3/4 of the students and got into the teachers, the school had to be shut for 2 days. The council would. what, say everyone had to go in? Kids were literally throwing up all over the place and being kids it was all over the corridors. They issued them plastic bags to walk around with! But you know what a bunch of malingering bastards, right?

They're talking about this on The Wright Stuff now.

Ceto I know for an absolutely fact that they haven’t.

Somehow, DingleBerries, that doesn't surprise me.

"Plus I'd be VERY interested in seeing the the work records for the people who made these rules and the council generally. Do they all have a 100% attendance record? Of course they fucking well don't"

Reminds me of the last meeting I had with dd's junior school. The consultant had come in to talk to them about managing her condition. The school otoh had invited two SWs, as they were still convinced (several years post-diagnosis!) that the problem was in my parenting. Present at the same meeting was a senior member of staff who had had some time off with a broken arm. They were all fussing over her and asking how she was, at the same time as telling us that dd having time off when she was ill was unacceptable. When the consultant asked if there were any questions about dd's condition, this staff member piped up with "how will we know she is really in pain?"! The consultant looked at her rather oddly and muttered "she will tell you" (dd was in Yr 5 at the time so quite capable of speech).

The assumption throughout the meeting was that an adult who had had a minor accident must be viewed with sympathy and concern, but that a child who suffered severe pain on a more or less permanent basis should be viewed with suspicion and made to understand this was unacceptable.

My one consolation was that SS sat glaring daggers at them throughout the meeting.