To not understand the fuss over attendance?

[CestLeWhy]

disclaimer: I didn't go through the state schooling system in the UK, DS is in reception, so I have no experience of school quotas/ funding/ social services. I'm not trying to be goady, I'm genuinely asking.

What is the fuss about attendance? I see so many posters proudly stating their kids have 100% attendance, and that is to be celebrated as it shows they are very conscientious, but why is it such a big deal?

DS just received his reception report and got 'Exceeding' in every category and glowing praise (not even a stealth boast, I am so proud) but his attendance was below 90%. So what? He's only 5. If he's poorly, which he is often, I keep him home rather than send him in for a miserable day for him and disruption to the class. A large chunk is also accounted for as we are from a different country so I take 2-3 days off a year for him to celebrate our cultural holidays. I think it's more important for him to grow up assimilating both cultures than attend every single day. I don't want to drip feed, we had a family emergency which caused some of the days off, but even without, his attendance would have been below 95%.

I can understand lots of reasons to monitor attendance: it can be a safeguarding indicator, it's important in higher years where they learn at a very fast pace etc but I just can't understand why it's considered so important in isolation for all year groups.

Educate me, please, MN!

Are you saying that you don't believe there is a link between attendance and performance (based on your son's experience

No, not at all, there's a clear link. I was saying that not every case is the same, and some children will still perform well despite lower attendance.

I refuse to be shamed for my son having health problems. It has nothing to do with me caring about his education - of course I care, I'm a teacher. However, his health comes first. Always.

Oh OK. It seemed to me from your wording that you were questioning it, my mistake.

neolara I think you articulated my point better than I did. Obviously attendance is crucial if children are struggling.

I also think it's interesting that private schools are not militant about attendance and their educational outcomes don't seem to suffer. We have lots of friends who privately educate their children and routinely keep them off school for a variety of valid reasons.

When my DD attended reception in private school in other country, and my DF was diagnosed with a terminal illness, the Head Teacher actually suggested we take a month off and travel home so DD could be with her grandparent in his final days. We took her school work with us. His kindness and humanity has stayed with me over the years, and honestly I feel DD received a better life lesson on exercising judgement and valuing relationships rather than blindly following rules.

to all the posters whose children miss school for health problems

My DCs both have just above 90% attendance this year, for various reasons. However, their school reports have just been issued and DD 11 was exceeding in every area, with DS 9 exceeding in all areas except handwriting (due to a physical issue which school are aware of). DDs SATs results were 118, 117 and 114 respectively, so in our case, attendance has not affected their attainment. We are not low income, no SEN and no safeguarding/child protection issues here, so I think it's safe to say that, whilst attendance can affect attainment, it's more likely down to the fact that the children who are subject to the issues above are also more likely to have poor attendance. It's a complex and multi faceted issue, and not as black and white as 'all kids with poor attendance will do badly'. In DD's case, she had the lowest attendance in the class, yet the highest SATs results in her year.
There's no proven direct link, and I think it's unhelpful to suggest there is. The focus should be on improving the attendance of at risk groups, assess poor attendance on a case by case basis, and stop the utter bullshit that is attendance based rewards.
When I met with the school welfare officer to discuss DCs attendance, and I gave her a comprehensive breakdown of every absence, she was satisfied and I have had no further dealings with the school on the matter. It's plainly obvious, in our situation, that their absence percentage is not negatively impacting on their educational, social or health outcomes.

Holidays however are a massive bug near of mine! There are 13 weeks of school holidays to go away and yes it is expensive but save up or go somewhere cheaper!

As a 7 year old when my dad was working in Norway I was taken out of school for about a month to drive up the length of Norway, down through Sweden, on the ferry to Denmark, through Germany and up through the Netherlands to get the ferry back to the UK. It was worth it times 1000. I did very well in the SATs (in fact the whole of primary school I was significantly ahead of the curriculum anyway - although interestingly in the 6 months preceding I'd been at the "British School" in Norway which supposedly followed the British curriculum but was obvious a private school and I struggled there as it was a lot more rigorous and involved a lot more homework than my school at home - although my main memory of it is never being allowed out at playtime because I refused to eat the disgusting pack lunches my mum sent).

It is schools responding to rigid tick box policies imposed on them. In the real world, personalised targets that consider issues such as ongoing medical conditions would be more useful and better respected.

I preferred it when schools had some discretion on holidays. The dialogue has now been lost because there is no point in consulting with the school on a timing which may be more mutually beneficial than another (thinks of when a student missed GCSE fieldwork that contributed towards 25% of the course. In the true spirit of anecdata, he was intelligent and hardworking enough to overcome that particular hindrence without obvious effect on his results... most in the class would not have pulled that off)

There is a real correlation on attendance and attainment, but the impact of it will be affected by lots of other factors, general health, intelligence, work ethic, attitude to education etc. If you had two students with 85% attendance, the effect of their absences would be affected by their circumstances. A constant drip of days here and there can be more detrimental than missing a chunk due to chicken pox or a holiday.

90% sounds high, but being the equivilent of one day missed per fortnight is quite sobering.

I should add, I meant no proven direct link to suggest ALL absence causes low attainment. In the vast majority of cases, poor attendance does epual poor outcomes, but the statistics should take into account SEN, health issues, looked after children and low income families. But as is the way with statistics, they can be manipulated to say whatever you want.

The focus should be on improving the attendance of at risk groups, assess poor attendance on a case by case basis, and stop the utter bullshit that is attendance based rewards.

^^YES.

Our primary school are so militant over absences it’s ridiculous. It’s got to the point now where half a page in the newsletter is dedicated to attendance every week. They show a graph for each class’ attendance for that week. There is also a big spiel about how even one day off can affect your child’s education FOR LIFE . I wouldn’t mind, but this is in a school where the average attendance hovers around the 98%. You are expected to take your child in when they are ill and they tell you they are happy to administer any medication. All days off requested for holidays, wedding and funeral attendances etc are refused and any unauthorised time off is reported to the local authority. If you have 5 days off in a row (for a holiday not illness) you are fined, have to have an appointment with a headteacher and receive a phone call or a visit from a welfare officer. I think it’s bloody ridiculous. I could understand them being so severe if they had attendance issues, or a significant number of children on the at risk register, but as far as I’m aware it’s a school that’s never really had attendance issues and is in an affluent area.
Despite all this if your child throws up or has diarrhoea they have to stay off while they are unwell + 2 full days off when they are well again, to make sure they don’t spread the norovirus etc around school.

I’m lucky that my children are healthy and rarely ill. They are rewarded for this with certificates and medals in assembly, which is plain wrong. Well done for being lucky enough not to have gotten ill this year I was ill a lot as a child and have ongoing health problems. I was off school a lot (hospitalised) but always caught up, did well at school, went to uni and generally have done well in life. I also got taken on holidays at the very end of the summer term as my Dad wasn’t allowed time off in August and the headteacher used their discretion and agreed with my parents that time off for the whole family together was important. Whereas in my daughters’ school they take things to the extreme and a child we know was even refused time off to visit a close dying relative in a foreign country. The high school our school has links to insists on drs notes if a child is off sick for one day. One bloody day!!! Apparently our school are also mooting the idea. If the school wasn’t excellent in every other aspect I wouldn’t still be sending my children there as I think they are ridiculously over the top on this one issue.

Holidays however are a massive bug near of mine! There are 13 weeks of school holidays to go away and yes it is expensive but save up or go somewhere cheaper!

I am on the fence. If you take your ONE holiday of the year to go boozing in Magaluf, then it's unreasonable to take the kids off school for that - plus what do you do with them during the actual 13 weeks?

However, some jobs make it difficult to take holidays and a parent might only be available during term time. You can also have a great opportunity in May for example (such as a family wedding abroad), and you will make the most of it by taking an extra week off.

Reasonable parents tend to plan around exams, it matters a lot less what time you take off in Reception than in Year 6.

They refuse days off for funerals Ninoo?
That's ludicrous and actually cruel.

My 21yo dd is going through MH assessments and though they haven't come up with a diagnosis yet I know one thing they are definitely looking at is PTSD after the way her chronic condition/attendance record was handled by her junior school. They knew she was genuinely ill and her consultant even came to the school to talk to staff, but they still believed they would be able to improve her attendance record if they just made her feel uncomfortable enough about being ill and absent.

By the time she reached her supportive and understanding secondary school, the damage was already done. She had developed trust issues and extreme panic reactions and did badly in her GCSE's partly due to being hospitalised after a suicide attempt which was directly triggered by the fear of falling ill at school and not being believed.

The high school our school has links to insists on drs notes if a child is off sick for one day.

good luck with that if you are in England! The GP refuse to write them - and with 3 weeks to get an appointment anyway, it would mean taking even more time off to see the doctor to get your letter, 3 weeks later then.
Some schools are ridiculous

cory that's absolutely shocking, your poor DD. I hope she receives all the support she needs

Yes I agree refusing time off for funerals is cruel. It’s because they have a blanket zero tolerance policy. Most parents in situations like that just phone on the day and tell them they’re taking them(after all they can’t actually stop you). You only get a fine for 5 consecutive days, but they do send letters home from the headteacher for every unauthorised absence no matter what the circumstances.

Ori-fcking-gami that's what my daughter did yesterday. Got tons of the stuff.
Today picnic and disco,
Monday was talent day. School finishes next week. So if it wasn't for her dance show, we'd be away on holiday. (We jolly well will be next year).

I always had 100% attendance and it never helped me in any way. I passed some exams with highest grade and failed others. School is what you make of it. My DS has a A few health issues which have affected his attendance. This year was better than last year. We take them out the last day of term

1. DP only gets certain holidays and the last week of term is one of the weeks which is soo much cheaper than going the next week.
2. All they do on the last day is mess around and have fun so no one is losing out on learning.

We won’t do it next year as DS will be in year 6 so don’t want him to miss his last day at primary school. Last year half the school contracted Aussie flu, certain times of year are thriving with illnesses so it’s kind of impossible to avoid, good luck to those who avoid this but I wouldn’t send my vomiting or very sick child to school because it isn’t fair on others let alone themselves.

sometimes it goes too far
sometimes parents are in two minds if little Jimmy is sick enough to stay home or not and they think ill send him or we will get a fine...
At my sons school someone sent little Jimmy to school, little Jimmy came down with a very nasty tummy bug.... little Jimmy took out 1/2 the school... YES HALF THE SCHOOL ...
sometimes having that fear of the fine is a good incentive to send them and other times... half the school gets the shits and vomiting for 3 days ( and then 2 more days off because of the 48 hour rule)

No, I don’t get it either. I’m in Scotland and it’s not the same issue up here (no Ofsted), nobody gets all bent out of shape about attendance issues. Obviously if an individual child / family is having issues they are addressed but not on a whole school level.

*Baking demon;
*
No OP should not be ashamed of herself!
Her DS was ill also clearly states that there was a family emergency too!
Also their religion which they are entitled to celebrate as we do at Christmas and Easter!
(white British btw)
Listen "governor " all of the children in your school and every other school are HUMAN BEINGS!
NOT STATISTICS OR NUMBERS!!

They not robots either!
To tell OP to be ashamed is nothing but IDIOTIC!....YOU! ,Should be ashamed to even think you have a god damn right to say that?!....after she has clearly explained her reasons and they are good enough reasons.
You governors are DELUDED !
Children= human beings
Not numbers!!!!

I honestly think if a child is on or above target there is no reason to even look at their attendance

*Professor moody;
*
My DS exactly the same he is disabled, with medical issues and never get 100% but all other kids that have 100% get to go bowling etc and ice cream!
Yes encourage high attendance but do not DISCRIMINATE those with disabilities who have medically appointments, low immune systems so they catch everything!

I

It's a good work ethic to instill at an early age if at all possible, I'm aware that it's not always possible, but it's about committing to something and following it through. I don't think that's a bad habit to get into.

slightly off topic but relevant to the proposition that poor attendance must have a negative effect on child.

My son with ASD has been at school for less than half of this academic year. He can't cope with school and we are looking for a change of provision for something suitable.

At school he was middle ability groups across the board. He did a GCSE past paper this week to see what his current level is and was 2 marks of the national standard (level 4 at age 16). He is 12.

This proves that school is not always the best place for a child to be educated and that they do not always miss out even if they missed most of 2 years of formal education and the dreaded stats.

Poor attendance can be for many reasons. The obvious/ logical links that people make for the reasons for poor attendance and the effect of it are not always true.