Or this is totally not right

[Sophisticatedsarcasm]

Just got my DD report today, and the attendance is listed as 91% which in my calculations is wrong considering she’s been at school everyday except the 2 half days she got sent home for being ill. The only other days she had off were because the school was closed, one for a snow day and another one because a suspected ww2 bomb was found in the vicinity. Surely they shouldn’t include those days as part of her absences ? Can anyone shed any light to this?

We break up this Friday. I’m pretty sure they made a mistake. Will talk to them tomorrow, it pisses me off b3cause as our county is shit for attendance so they bang on about it all the time yet they can even calculate it right 😬

Does look like an error to me.
I'd ask at the office. After all, if the school are marking people down incorrectly, it doesn't really affect your dc, but it does affect their overall attendance figures. Imagine if they've made this mistake several, or even dozens of times - it would make a big difference to their overall attendance figures and they'd be pleased to know.
OuchLegoHurts - no, it doesn't matter to the OP's dc, but it does matter to the school. It affects OFSTED ratings and all sorts.

Oh sorry just saw that she didn't have a staggered start, did she start on the same day as the rest of the school? As it looks like she missed five days?

My DS says he’s had 16 days off but that’s not true, because I’ve marked down all the times he’s missed which is more than my DD as he had a sickness bug, then had the Aussie flu and had an ear infection. He also had 2 medical appointments regarding his ASD, it doesn’t add up to 16 absences..... although saying that I think they count morning and afternoon as individual absences. Which still doesn’t make my Dd 91%

@corneliusmurphy
No she started a week later, however that’s their procedure so surely that shouldn’t count...

If you look at the bottom of the attendance sheet, you will see that the last few weeks have not been completed by the office staff. (I think this is right - I can't see the dates as they have been cropped.) This means they are showing as - - - - - - -. These count as absent until they are completed. I imagine the office staff printed them off when the reports were being collated. Take it in tomorrow and ask the office staff to reissue the sheet once they have entered everything up to date.

Skipping to the end here so sorry if it’s been said.

Her attendance percentage only starts from the term after she turns 5.

Anything before that will show as 100% even if she never walked through the door.
In the term after she turned 5 it will be a percentage of the possible days in that term and onwards. So if she turned 5 in March the attendance percentage will be from the Summer term onwards.

I had this happen with a girl who turned 5 just before Easter. She had perfect attendance up until the week after Easter when she had chicken pox and had a week off.

When the report came out it showed that she had 90% attendance even though she only had one week off in the year.

Does it matter? Not being sarcastic but I'm in Ireland where it doesn't make any difference how many days a student misses as long as it's under 20

I agree, some things in other school systems seem strange. That said, in Ireland, my kids school is forever miscalculating the number of days my kids are there, but always stating they have better attendance than they actually do.

All said and done, from what I've gathered on Mumsnet, parents get hauled over the coals in the UK with respect to attendance, and unauthorised absences (in a way we don't have to even consider here), so I can fully understand why, having made the effort to get your child to school on time or at all, you'd want that effort properly recorded. Particularly if poor attendance rates mean more of the same approach the following year.

She wasn't in school so was absent. For the figures it's irrelevant if she was ill, snowed in, etc etc. Different types of absences are noted as such but the % is fact.

Attendance percentages are only calculated for the days following the term after a child turns 5, ie becomes compulsory school age.

Looking at that form, you can see there are quite a few sessions with codes of X,Y,C - presumably when the school was closed - and the data will have been produced through a report system and that system counts those sessions as not attended (regardless of not being a real absence). So there are x number of sessions not coded as school holiday/closed and there are y number of sessions marked as attended. I'd guess the system wouldn't take into account the other codes except when looking for authorised/unauthorised a bsence

LISTEN. IT IS ONLY CALCULATED ONCE THE CHILD IS COMPULSORY SCHOOL AGE!

The problem actually lies on the date the report was run.

Your report is dated 4/9/17 to 20/7/18.
You cannot run a report like attendance with a cut off date in the future.

It has nothing to do with compulsory school age.
OP - your report shows a morning mark on a Monday and then no further marks.
What date is that Monday???

This is a SIMs (school's computer data) print out so is only as good as the data put in.

Each Y and C will count as an absence. The school shouldn't be putting Y if it was shut.

Also if they've done the attendance up to the end of the last week the gaps will count.

It's obviously someone who can't use SIMs correctly.

SIMs also won't take into account school compulsory age unless it's programmed to.

@SimonBridges APPARENTLY IT'S NOTHING TO DO WITH COMPULSORY SCHOOL AGE.

Yes it is.
It exactly is.
Why will no one listen?

I had a child who had a report saying 100% attendance. She had only been for about 50 sessions but because she is not compulsory school age yet it came up as 100%.
After they are compulsory school age the percentage is taken from the compulsory sessions and the dates they attended.

Even if it was to do with school age she was 5 the day after she started, she’s the oldest in her class. It just pisses me off that they piss and moan about attendance yet they have incompetent staff or ways of calculating it 😖

I took mine out for a holiday for 2 and a half weeks and their attendance was more than that! Definitely query it.

They have made a mistake on their figures. You take it to the office and get them to change it

Looks like your SIMs report was run on the morning of 2nd July 2018.

The end date of the report was dated 20th July 2018.
Therefore SIMs calculated your child as being absent (ie not having a present mark) on the school sessions starting on Monday afternoon, 2nd July right upto 20th July. That's 29 sessions.

That's why the percentage is so low.

It's an Admin error - one which I suspect will be reflected across the whole school.

Wow. Why would you bother calculating it? Its not important.

It's a nonsense but tbh it is completely and utterly irrelevant and will impact you not one jot. I say this as parent to a child who has 84% attendance this year due to a period of school refusal.

Are any of those abscences unauthorised?

If the school wants to mark it that way - lower attendance than achieved then its their stupid admin error look out.

The attendances don't add up. She did 335, 4 absences total 339 not 367. Something doesn't add up and I don't see the harm in pointing it out.

As a comparison DD attended 348,5 absences possible 353. 98%. This week is marked with ----

Don't know where your school got the extra sessions.