Do all schools do this?

[Kit2015]

I was running an event in a primary school today and as I was setting up I had a look at the display boards around the room.

One board was attendance. With 100%, 80%, 60%, 20% in rows. The kids photos were then stuck on which ever row I assume their attendance was at.
I had quite alot of health issues when younger and my attendance wasn't great, and this would have really upset me.
So aibu to think this is quite off? Or is this current practice.
My DD is not yet school age so I've got nothing to compare it to.

I find it hard to believe there are 100/80/60/20% categories. If the attendance is less than 95%( or what ever) school starts to make a fuss. There are no way children fall into less than that with normal circumstances, and school will get complaint if they are deliberately humiliating children with illness. So, no. I don't believe it.

Schools are under enormous pressure from OfSTED and the government performance tables re:attendance. I don't think people realise how much. They are expected to track every group of students their PP against non PP nationally , boys, girls, EHCP, other special needs, high, middle and low ability all for attendance, Persistent Absence and unauthorised absence. Poor attendance, anything at average or below average, particularly of key groups, can result in an OfSTED inspection and very poor OfSTED grade. They have to show the actions they take and the impact it has and if it doesn't show positive impact what other actions they take.
In a small primary school 3 children with poor attendance in a year group can have an enormous impact on data.

I would not like this either.

My dd is 7 and has asthma. She has been doing great health wise until a few weeks back and has picked up a couple of viruses.

She was ill on Sunday and I took her to the doctor on Monday and she has tonsillitis quite bad and wasn't at all well.
School were informed of course.

The next day the council school attendance officer knocked at the door at 10.30, she was very nice but I was shocked that she had been sent.

Dd's attendance is just over 90% and every illness has been recorded and has been as short as possible.

My 15 yr old ds has never even been on antibiotics and is never ill.
Dd can't help having a chronic illness.

I understand perfectly Lulu. I still don't think a board of children's photos displayed in a public area to shame the parent and child into improving their attendance (even when the child is absent due to reasons beyond the parents control) is a great or fair idea.
As mentioned earlier, I had one child with near perfect attendance and one not. I don't need "shaming" and it won't improve DS attendance. Trust me, if DS could be there more often it would make my life and his much easier. I don't need other parents looking at this chart and making assumptions about my parenting or DS. I don't actually give a rats arse what anyone else thinks, but it is still wrong.

I would also say that many parents are quite happy with poor attendance. Not all so don't think I am getting at you. But I have seen parents who will lie on the phone, lie to my face, lie in writing to cover for their child's absence.
I have countless examples- one who claimed to the council's EWO that all of their clothing had been left in a storage container, the children had no uniforms and the school were refusing to let them attend. We had offered to give the children new uniforms at no cost. (3 children all with 50-60% attendance) She could not be bothered to get them out of bed.
Another who told me her son was ill in bed when he was on the school field on a motorbike (attendance 30%) and I could see him as we spoke.
Another who claimed to the Head her daughter was too nervous to leave the house, only left the house with her mother and terrified of school.An hour later I happened to be on lunch duty with the Head and a girl was standing at the gates smoking and shouted obscenities at him - the girl (attendance 0%) who was too nervous to leave the house.

Another whose very able son had terrible attendance because he didn't like getting out of bed (attendance in 50% range) and her solution was to ask us to send the work home because she didn't like upsetting him.

We tried all kinds of things and ultimately court but they plead poverty and are given extra opportunities and then fined and pay it off over years at £1 a week.

By the time children reach secondary school, the pattern is established and rarely changes. Parents are to blame.

I agree boards with photos are not appropriate by the way.

Never heard of this. I would be making a fuss if my child was in this school.

This would annoy me too. I keep my child off school to avoid infecting half the class and to take of them properly. Other parents sling them in however they are.

I've never seen that at my DCs schools

Pottering 😄
Not acceptable at all. I would be livid if dd's school did this

We have an attendance board but its done by class (i.e. Class A - 96% Class B - 94% etc) not singling out children because it wouldn't achieve anything. It won't make ill children healthier, it won't make lazy parents make any more effort and the children who are bunking off won't care.

Dad's school has a chart on the wall that shows % attendance for the previous week by class and whole school.

Definitely not fair to have children's pictures being used in that way.

My dd's attendance would currently show lower than normal. She was off for 4 days as she had a virus resulting in a temperature, swollen throat and ear infection. Gp said her temp was raised, about an hour after she had taken calpol. The earlier in the term/school year they are off, the lower the attendance looks. Assuming she is not ill again, by the end of the term her attendance will be acceptable again. She has only ever been off for illness or hospital appointments.

Whilst attendance is important, it shouldn't be the be all and end all. Some children can't help being off, and some are off because others go in and spread germs when they should be off.

OfSTED puts too much emphasis on attendance which is not helping anyone. It is leading to unfair practices like this but also an increase in sick children being sent to school. I'm a TA and at the moment in a class of 3 and 4 year olds we have so many children who really should be home resting, who are only managing just about because they are dosed up on calpol. As soon as the medicine starts to wear off they are struggling. We have also had several children with eyes so sticky and infected they can't see. But parents are allowed to send them on with cunjunctivitus and so do.

We have more parents who don’t send their kids to school “because they didn’t want to come” than we do parents whose kids are missing school due to entirely understandable medical issues, FWIW.

I'm a teacher (secondary though.) This kind of thing was encouraged among staff, particularly in my year team. I was given an envelope of my tutor group's photos to use on some kind of chart. Had a couple of kids in the room who were constantly off for quite serious health issues and a couple of school avoiders so could never bring myself to use it. Why come in if you're going to be publicly shamed?

That school also published every student's results all around the school every term too, ranked 1-190 (or however many in the year group). Purely by attainment, no SEN or whatnot taken into consideration.

It was motivating.. for the top 20%.

No. My kids have been at 3 primaries between them. They had a little section in a main corridor saying "these people got 100% attendance last school year" but definitely not a list and photo of everyone's percentages,

I would be kicking up a massive fuss if that was ds School! His attendance has at times dropped down to under 75% but the school are great and fully understand the complexity of his needs. They have the class attendance awards in the school but his figures aren’t counted in that internal thing so he isn’t seen as always pulling the figure for his class down

@MiaowTheCat I remember the first term I worked there seeing the results go up around the school (it was quite a unique and controversial feature of an outstanding inner city state) and thinking 'well Christ, there are 150 odd students out in the playground at 4pm talking about their levels, that's gotta mean something.' Perhaps at the time it did, but five years later it was clear that it was really damaging pupils at both ends. My tutor group were 'top set' and they had panic attacks in exam season over the prospect of slipping from 10 to 11 in the year group order. 12 year olds.

If they are teaching children to ostracise the ill children, well done, they're doing a great job!

Your parents are shit and don't take you to school? Well guess what you're going to have see it on a fucking chart daily.

You're ill or disabled and have medical appts?
Haha now you're losing on the bloody chart.
great.

My school doesn't. We don't do certificates for 100% attendance or similar either. It isn't inclusive of all our children, and as ours are infant school age, it was simply a certificate to say 100% of parent's bringing them in - the children had no real say in whether they came to school or not.

That would massively get my back up.

My son’s school certainly doesn’t. Sounds awful. And he has very high levels of attendance (we are lucky).