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!

Looking at this thread, I think it's pretty ableist.

I'm a disabled teacher and my DS has disabilities. People are basically saying that if you're disabled and miss school, you'll fall behind. To assume that this will happen for every child is appalling.

Agree it is about attitude too. If you don’t turn up to work/appointments it is extremely distributive for everyone else.
A right attitude is really important for life.

ProfessorMoody
Where there are long term medical issues and disabilities then different support is in place.

E.g. For my students who miss lots due to long term health issues, we have summaries of work, study packs that can be completed with parents/hospital education staff. It's a slimmed down version of what's covered. It means when they come back in then they can get caught up.

Ultimately attendance does impact on outcomes for children. They can't be taught if they aren't there. Where there are factors requiring additional help, we put it in place. Those situations are different to keeping a child off every time they're a little under the weather or have the sniffles (or as some do on MN to have a day off with Mum).

The right attitude is being able to say 'I'm unwell today, due to my health problems and will not be in work for xyz number of days' and, given that disability is protected under law, the right attitude of an employer is to say 'OK, wishing you well and we look forward to your return'
In the real world, no employer says 'if you have x number of sick days you will have missed y number of weeks by the end of the year' because, as adults, we can count and we know that!
In the real world, if you have a health condition, either physical or mental, you can generally choose a job you feel able to manage and (hopefully) work for an employer who understands that sometimes you will be unable to work due to illness/hospital appts/surgery/recovery.
In the real world, employers aren't judged on their employees attendance records.
Children aren't offered any of these luxuries. They are made to go to school, every day for 12 years, and most schools are so target driven that they do not differentiate between children who genuinely need the extra time off and children whose parents cannot be bothered to take them. They also do not allow for children whose parents take them out of school for cultural, social or spiritual experiences, regardless of whether those experiences further their education or not.

I'm absolutely furious about the lack of support for a disabled parent when it comes to attendance. The mum is a single parent, had a stroke that has left her quite impaired (wheelchair user) and she has seizures. She is often too unwell to get the children to school. She had to move to an adapted property and is now nowhere near friends or family, kids' dad lives 40 miles away.

The school is over 2 miles from her house, along a busy main road with no pavement/narrow pavement. There is a shorter pedestrian route, but it is not wheelchair accessible. The LEA provides transport for children with disabilities, but not for children of disabled parents. The children are 6 and 8 and too young to walk or go by bus alone. Taxi is £12 each way and unaffordable without financial help. There are no vacancies at the nearest school.

The school have no sympathy for this woman's predicament, but give her absolute hell about every non-attendance and are now threatening her with prosecution/fines etc. The "academy" is meanwhile picking up 2 x pupil premium because of the kids.

She's now talking about withdrawing them from school and home educating them, which I'm sure will mean not educating them.

I'm at my wits end trying to think of ways to help resolve this, the school are being complete shits and totally failing to appreciate what this poor woman is up against.

lakie
School should be using some of their PP money to arrange transport.
That's what our school does anyway when there are barriers to PP students attending. It's not a long term solution, but can eb enough until a longer term solution is found.
I can't believe school aren't doing anything when it's fairly common knowledge that persistent absenteeism is more common in PP students than non PP ones.

Agreed Lakie PP money is supposed to remove barriers to learning. Ours is sometimes used to buy uniform for children whose parents cannot otherwise afoord it. It's totally at the schools discretion what it gets used on, but they have to publish a report every year detailing what they've spent it on and whether it has been effective in improving outcomes for disadvantaged children. Find out who the is responsible for PP spending in the school and discuss it with them, if you're in a position to do so.

Afford *

Below 90% is A LOT of time off. I'm not going to dignify you with an answer as to why attendance is important, I'm going to assume you're intelligent enough to figure that out. I'd be mortified if my child's attendance was that low, I have taken on holiday in term time and not gone below 95% my children often get a stomach bug in autumn but other than that they are in school, I was raised to not miss school because of a sniffle and my work attendance record reflects that, my children are raised the same.

Kit10 DS1 had to have much less than 90% attendance. If he got a serious secondary infection, it was a hospital admission for a fortnight. If it was less serious, he'd have to stay at home. Because of family issues, he moved in with my DM and stepdad. Only recently, after stepdad's died, has DM told me that he sent DS1 to school when he should have been in hospital. Neglect? Abuse? She didn't know until it was too late, because she was working full time. He's 27 now, in a very bad way, and I think my stepdad is partly to blame. He was a cunt. May he rot in hell.

Perfectly

I'm obviously not talking about children with specific issues.

10% is nearly 4 WEEKS off school, unless there is a medical condition or something specific that has happened that year that is an insane amount of time off.

Ds has 85% attendance this academic year. All unavoidable due to his disabilities but yes it does impact on his learning. It’s impossible to miss so much and it not sadly!

Where there are no known issues causing the absences then yes questions should be asked as to what can be done by all those involved in order to reduce the absences and help with any other factors playing a role in them.

Even when I was at school in the 70s:80s I hated catching up on lessons missed and it always took a few days. I remember in year 5 I had a lot of absences and the fact I’d missed work was all over my report that year. It’s not a new thing, but it’s more official now.
I go into work on days I feel under par and I would expect my kids to do the same re school unless they were properly ill :streaming cold, temperature, tummy issues as examples.
Obviously in Reception he’s not going to miss much but he will in years to come.
I work in a secondary school and anything under 90% attendance triggers a letter/Education welfare officer intervention (major ops etc accounted for). It’s more a pattern of non-attendance they’re looking for.

Try 2 weeks off on average 5 times a year. DS1 is luckily very intelligent, he was never behind at school, but it's all academic as he's too ill to work anyway. He naps a lot of the time.

I think a lot of this stems from how Ofsted became Ofsted. I read the Baby P book by Ray Jones which was really insightful in this regard.

The education system here is so focused on targets, it loses sight of the idea that not everything that can be counted, counts, and not everything that counts, can be counted.

Super you're right, employers aren't judged on the their employees attendance records, the employees are judged by the employers on their attendance records and it can be a reason for a disciplinary which could lead through the process of being sacked.

Not many jobs out there allow flexi time, have a day off when feel up to it as long as you catch up (some jobs you can't catch up) and those roles that do aren't usually starting positions, you would have had to do some of the harder grafting work first before you get to the more experienced roles and can choose to be a bit more flexible. Employers just don't hire people straight out of school or uni and start letting them pick and choose when they come in, they want people who are going to prove their work ethic, build up their skills and get on with the job. As much as some employers would love to help out and be sympathetic, they are also running a business where employees being of can be detrimental to productivity/the service they can provide.

It would be lovely to think everyone who is struggling could be given the opportunity to work when they feel up to it but sadly that's not the reality of the majority of employment.

I think a PP is right. There is an obvious distinction between children with disabilities and long term health conditions and children who are kept off routinely by their parents.

The vast majority of children who end up with attendance issues and poor educational performance are not those with long term medical issues (in my experience anyway). They are the ones who are off regularly for random days, never catch up, home aren't bothered about attendance and then in y11 home suddenly want to know why their child isn't on target and it's because they've missed around 5-6 weeks of school every year from y7 in odd few days here and there and never got caught up.

In my experience parents of children with long term medical issues are some of the most supportive and dedicated parents we meet. They know missing school has an impact and they work with us to help support the child by putting measures in place. They tend to be the parents who buy books before we study them so their child knows the plot in advance, order revision guides, use material from school at home, one parent I knew used to have a weekly tutor who'd cover core subjects and the tutor was flexible on time around the child's needs.

One of DDs friends has appalling attendance. She regularly doesn’t go in because ‘she feels a bit tired’ etc. Because her mum doesn’t work there is less incentive to get her out of the house.
For whatever reason our Primary is not tackling it (I think there are students with bigger issues).
I think attendance is a habit, you have to get used to going in all the time (not when you are really ill, or have specific issues).
Problem when she goes do secondary it will be a big issue. I don’t think she’s learning how to tell if she’s well enough to really go in or not.

I work in a secondary- attendance is everything to us and a huge amount of resources are put into tackling it.
There are students who come from countries where they don’t have to go to school at all and getting them to come in is a real battle.

It’s the few spoiling it for the many again though. When you have students with attendance of 60% it brings the numbers right down for everyone.

Pipedown if you have a disability or health issue and your employer sacks you because you've had to take time off for appointments or due to illness, they are breaking the law. It's that simple.

My DS has SEN, his attendance is poor mainly due to MH issues caused by school. He has been bullied throughout his school life & this has caused his MH issues. Every time there has been an incident, I have contacted school & asked them to deal with it, school deny that bullying has taken place, their answer my DS "sees things differently due to his disability" how can being punched in the face or having his bag slashed be seen differently?

I have been begging for an EHCP since his diagnosis that took over 3 years because school refused to work with the therapists who wanted to come in school & observe him there. When we finally got a diagnosis, I took a copy of the report in to school & handed it to the SENCO who without reading it told me that there was nothing wrong with him.

His MH has deteriorated to the stage where he needs to see a psychologist, it took CAMHS & the Neuro Disability hospital nine months of arguing who's waiting list he should be on before he was put on the list for us to be told that the minimum wait was two years, he is 14 now & just finishing Y9 so potentially by the time he gets treatment he could have failed his GCSE'S.

I complained through my MP to school about the bullying & lack of support for my DS & his condition & got told "We are a community school & have pupils who come from homes where children have no discipline, this is not our fault & we can't do anything to rectify that". My DS has a totally clean disciplinary record & wants to learn, he is being denied that by a school that won't discipline problem pupils but will threaten me with court & fines because my son is ill due to their shortcomings.

Some very smug and sanctimonious posts on here from a few 'outraged' posters slagging off people whose childrens attendance drops below 90% and how they would be 'horrified' if their child dropped below 90%, and 10% is an insane amount of time off.

Bore off.

And yes @CestLeWhy YANBU.

It is stupid how many school focus more in attendance than they do on performance!

I have a year 10 class. Since the beginning of the year I haven’t had one single lesson where all of them have been in. Not one. Often there are 3/4 away.

That means that every single lesson I have to spend time dealing with children who have no clue what is going on. Even if I spend 3 additional mins with each, that’s maybe 9 mins out of a 50 minute lesson.
It also means group work is often disrupted.
It means assessments are missed, so they have to do them in another lesson, which means another lesson is missed.
It means group marking, where I look at all their books together to see how consistently they are working, is not as effective - I can’t as quickly see common misconceptions, for example.

It is a massive issue.

@Rebooting

Sounds like the problem lies with you - and your school.

That many children would not be off - constantly - if the teaching standards were excellent, and the lessons were interesting.

I know that schools are under pressure from OFSTED, and many of them are tootling along on a 'good' grade, not great, not excellent.

So it doesn't take much to drop them to a 'requires improvement' grade.

I am actually in agreement with the OP. OFSTED rules state that the school year is 180 days, and your child MUST attend for 170 of them, or they are falling into the realms of 'low attendance.'

Stupid, stupid, stupid.

What if the child is ill for a week, and then has to have several 2 or 3 day periods off with a sore throat, bad cold, tummy bug, and OMG they have had MORE than the allocated 10 days off in a WHOLE SCHOOL YEAR?!

My daughter is grown now (mid 20's,) but when she was between 5 and 12, I used to take her for a trip to the beach in school time a couple of times between April and June, and me and her and DH (her dad,) used to have a week off in late September/early October AND April every year to go on our family holiday.

She was told at school (at 9 y.o.) that in English, she has reading and writing age of 14, she has the maths skills level of a 13 y.o. and she is most definitely going to university.' (This was only just into the 2000's BTW...)

Her attendance was always good (around 90%) even with the days off. The school never complained, and didn't seem to make such a fuss then. They actually allowed 10 days off with no question. Upshot is, her having some 13-15 days off in the school year did not affect her education one single jot.

Fast forward to when she was at secondary school. My daughter had been doing very well for the first 2-3 years at school, and then part way though Year 9, (so when she was 13-14,) she and a friend of hers fell out.

The 'friend' got together with 5 or 6 other girls and my daughter was badly bullied at school for the second half of year 9, and the first half of year 10. Cyber bullying, stalking her, walking past the house and staring in, the mothers getting involved and joining in, and snubbing me, or giving me filthy looks. It was a nightmare and we had to get the police involved because of the harassment and the cyber bullying. My daughter was constantly low and depressed.

We contacted the school, and went to see them, and told them what was happening, and all they did was offer 'mediation' with the bullies, tell me that my daughter needs to learn to handle conflict better, and offer her counselling

The bullies (and their mothers) just laughed, said we needed to 'grow up' and 'get a grip,' and we were mocked on social media, by the bullies AND their mothers.

It got to the point where my daughter wouldn't go into school, and I thought I was going to have to home school her. Her attendance dropped to 77%, which considering her life was being made a living hell, wasn't too bad actually!

The school then had the audacity to send a 'report' to the Education Authority about my daughter's 'poor attendance,' and I got a strongly worded letter from the Education authority, about my daughter's attendance, and how the school were concerned at how this 'low attendance' was going to affect her education.

Funny though, they didn't seem to give a flying fuck how the bullying was affecting her education (and her!) The Education Authority said that said if her attendance did not improve during the next half term, further action will be taken, and worst case scenario, me and her father could go to prison ....

They said we need to contact the school to sort this matter, and try to work with the school to bring our daughter's attendance levels up again!!!

I was incandescent with rage. I did not contact the school - I went to the Education Authority MYSELF, and gave them a nice little rundown of the reasons why my daughter's attendance had dropped, and the bullying she had had to endure for an entire school year.

They were furious, and said they were not aware of what had been happening, and contacted the school demanding to know what had been happening, and why this hadn't been mentioned in the report about my daughter's drop in attendance.

Cue shit hitting fan. The Education Authority went in all guns blazing to the school, and took our side. The school suddenly started showing a great deal of compassion for our daughter, the bullies were threatened with expulsion, (and their parents were chastised,) and the school brought in a new anti-bullying policy into the school, and brought in new cyber bullying rules and said anyone flouting them will be expelled.

The bullying stopped almost immediately (just a few snarky looks,) and my daughter is now a post grad who went to one of the top 10 universities in the UK, and is earning more than £50K in her mid 20's, she has her own home with her boyfriend, (who is also a high earner,) and has travelled to more than two dozen countries,. The bullies, unsurprisingly, have not done quite so well, and have achieved precisely nothing.

But yeah, going back to the OP. It's not the odd few days off and dropping to below 90% attendance that makes a child fail ... If they are failing, it will be for other reasons, like poor teaching, bullying, illness (that they cannot help,) or just that they are not academic. (And in a few cases, it's poor parenting...)

As a few posters have said, it's just the school worrying about their own OFSTED grades. Also, as a few posters have mentioned, it's a bit rich that the school will have inset days whenever it suits, and snow days, and send them home if it's too hot, (or too cold and the boiler has broken down!) Yet if you keep them off for a day to take them to a museum or to the beach or for a day in a big historic city, you get chastised for it.

One rule for them, another rule for parents.