To want school to stop sending dc home?

[mollycoddlethem]

So DC in reception.
In the 12 ish weeks they have been there they have been sent home 4 times.
Then I get a pissy letter re their attendance.
The 4 reasons they have been sent home -

1. They were tired on one occasion. Not falling asleep, but just looked a bit tired and wanted to sit and look at books in the reading corner.
2. They had tummy ache. No temperature, no runny poo, no other symptoms. Mentioned twice their tummy hurt. They were fine when they got home and ate an entire school dinner before still being sent home.
3. Sickness bug (completely understand this one)
4. A cough. No temp, other symptoms. Just a cough and complaining about their cough.

In preschool they got sent home perhaps once over the year. Surely schools should not be sending kids home for a cough? Now I lose a days pay because I need to go and collect. I understand that they are very little, but after 2 years of being in preschool and coping with coughs, colds, snotty noses etc I’m sure that DC would have been able to manage another 2 hours at school with a cough. My child can be a bit of a wimp and to be honest if given sympathy they play on it. In the nicest possible way I find that telling them to man up is the best thing to do and to distract them.

It seems over zealous. You are right about the sickness bug one, we would all expect to collect for that but not for the other reasons.

My kids schools will occasionally phone to tell me they have had a stomach ache, etc but are just giving me a heads up and don’t look to get them collected.

It’s driving me potty to be honest.
Me and DH have got stinking colds, my preschooler does, half of his nursery does.
But they don’t get sent home.
I just don’t think it’s teaching resilience and I think if DC knows they will get sent home every time then they’ll just keep playing on it.
They’ve perfected the puppy dog eyes look.

That's really odd.
Your strategy seems a good one, perhaps a word to the teacher that your dc tends to do that, so possibly take with a punch of salt?

Make sure it's boring at home!! Sent home during school hours =no TV /games time in my house. No snacks, just toast!!

I’ve worked in nurseries and we have sent home if children are so poorly that they can’t join in or play/learn.
I don’t think a cold, or being a bit sleepy, or tummy ache because you perhaps need a poo would be enough to send a child home.
But then the parents were paying £60 a day for nursery so they would really complain if they collected and didn’t need to.
School phone up saying you need to collect and there’s nothing you can do about it.

And don’t worry. I’ll be putting them down for a nap when I get home. Got a family member collecting as they’ll get there quicker than me as I’m on public transport.
Nothing exciting will be happening in this house today.

Complain to get to the bottom of this. I would also suggest shopping around for different nurseries

I would be annoyed too. Plenty of times my dc haven’t been 100% in school with coughs and colds and generally not feeling great. I would get a phone call to say they are keeping an eye on them and will call again if they really need to come home. But only once I ever had to collect and that was when ds2 was actually sick in school.

cherries It’s school, not nursery.

It’s not nursery. It’s school.
And can’t really move schools because of it.
Bloody frustrating though.
They promote their caring ethos, which is not wanting to see children under the weather at school when they should be at home.
But everyone else manages to soldier on with a cold. Even the 2 year old.

I lied and twice I had to pick ds2 up from high school because he’d been sick (typical winter bug when everyone is ill)

I don’t mind picking up for sickness bugs.
But coughs, colds, tummy aches, tired because they messed about in bed for an hour, refusing to sleep the night before until 8pm. I don’t think I should collect for those reasons.

It’s a school, not a child minder. If the school judges that your reception class child is not up to learning for a whole day, they should send them home. They need to focus on teaching, not child care.

Is your dc still quick young? summer baby? Maybe not ready for a full school day yet?

...Quite young..

That's ridiculous OP. It used to take me 2 hours to get back to collect a child from school so they never really bothered calling me!

Wow those are ridulous (bar sickness bug obviously). A cough?! I mean what on earth?! A bit tired? Is there a discussion that’s had or just “come pick up” instruction?

Is there anyone bar the wet teacher responsible that you can talk to? Is the teacher struggling in her role do you think?

I think all her child is learning is that if they lay it on a bit think the nice teacher will make mummy come and pick them up and they get to go home.

That is a lot.

In twelve years of taking children to school I have been asked to pick them up in the middle of the day precisely zero times.

It's their first term , they're all tired. If they send home for looking a bit tired, they could get rid of most of the class.
Schools usually say they shouldn't usually be kept off for coughs and colds

I can see both sides. Working as a teacher I have seen many children being dropped off poorly by parents as I assume they do not want to take time off work. However it is not nice for anyone having a poorly complaining child in class all day. We are there to teach and it becomes really difficult when the child actually needs looking after and we do not have the time to do that.

Your twins are both behaving identically? That is really odd.

Thankfully my DD's school don't do this. If the child has been a bit unwell at school they'll get a check over by staff and if they're concerned they'll ring to see what you want to do. If the child is actually sick obviously you have to go in.
I tend to say "leave her if she's okay" and we've managed fine with that.

I think you need to take it up with them perhaps saying that your child plays on the 'not quite feeling well' thing. School can't keep sending children home with poor excuses and then be snotty about attendance.

Why send relative if you think it's a false alarm? Make them wait till you get there

purple Have I missed where she said twins? Or are you assuming twins by the op’s use of “they” etc?

Apart from the sickness bug that's ridiculous. In 6 years I've only been called to pick up a dc once because she was sick all over the classroom. What would happen if you just said that you can't collect?