To ignore attendance letter from school

[wheresthel1ght]

Dd is 4 and in reception so legally she is not required to be in full time education.

We have had a letter home today about her attendance which is at 90.2% meaning she has missed 6 days since September. She has had 2 bouts of being sick due to asthma attacks but they insist on her being off for 48 hours which al(so 4 days there) and then she has had 2 days of hospital appointments.

To set the scene on the appointments; The hospital 35 miles away and is the closest hospital that offer dermatology services. It has no parking on site so you have to use the park and ride facilities in the city and then use public transport to. The hospital. It takes 45 mins to drive to the park and ride and then an hour on public transport to the hospital so a 10am appointment literally takes all day. So that covers her other 2 days.

She is due for tests next week which is another 3 full days off school which judging by the letter will drop her to about 87%.

Now if I understand correctly because she is not compulsory school age, they cannot fine us and the school, school nurse and council are all aware because the council refuse to accommodate her dietary needs which is why we are having so much time in hospital trying to get things sorted.

Am I correct? And if so can I just bin the letter?

If a child is long term sick and attends alternative education provision e.g. hospital school it s a different code.

Of course that isn't the case for a medical appt.
Lea has to have a ewo or other person for kids missing school for health medical reasons if it goes beyond 15 continuous days. If you have medical records for every absence it isn't an issue. But you will still get the letters.

There is support for children with long term sickness impacting school attendance.
But that's when it s much lower % attendance.

90% is more than 6 days off. I looked up the attendance of a student today that seems to have been off a lot and it’s been 6 days and it was 93% since September. There must have been other time off.

EWOs are not always confrontational. Like most jobs there are some that aren’t very good, but mostly they aren’t there to catch you out.

If it’s hospital appointments you can’t control they might just turn up to tick the box and they might actually be able to help with the unnecessary school enforced 48hr absence.

Echoing that it's probably just an automated letter.

After DD's first month in school (we moved house so she started later in the first term) we got a letter stating that her attendance was 46%. We weren't worried about being fined (she's under compulsory school age) but we were like "Oh shit how did this happen" until we realised that she didn't even start at the school until halfway through, and then attended every day after that

I'd hope any school would have the sense not to intentionally send out a letter berating us for - well, I don't know, maybe not moving faster - and not referring it on to an EWO, in the same way that I'd hope they see your DD's absences are for valid medical reasons and not just you saying can't be arsed to get out of bed today, have a day off.

@wheresthel1ght

When did I say the letter was bitching about it?

It was in the post where you said:

they should employ a bit of sense and not send home letters bitching about absence that they have sanctioned.