It’s MY decision as a parent NOT the schools

[IfeelSoIll]

I’m really quite angry
My dd (secondary school) has been unwell quite a bit lately, some very nasty viral illnesses. Been to gp and nothing underlying just bad luck it seems.

Anyway, yet again she returned yesterday feeling grim so had an early night but barely slept this morning throat was horrendously red and sore. Very congested and extremely nasty runny nose.
Generally tired and achy but no temperature.

School have called and told us bring her in. That THEY will keep her there and administer paracetamol and they will decide if she needs to go home. That in future if she’s ill to get her up and send her in and they will then decide.

AIBU to think that it’s cruel to send a visibly very unwell child to school just to prove who makes the decision about whether they are well enough to be in or not ?

This happens at my grandsons school a lot. He had major surgery last year and had to Be off school for 3 weeks. The school was aware of this and saw the paperwork but still continuously phoned my son saying he had to go in otherwise they would be sending someone round to see them. My son just told them to go ahead and send someone but there was no way they were sending him back until the consultant gave them the go ahead. Needless to say, no one came.

I do think this is really bad practice sending children to school when they are definitely to poorly to go. It’s not fair on the child and it’s not fair on other children.

“If a pupil falls below the attendance level then they do not get the funding for that pupil and they need every penny they can get at the moment. It only affects all of the other pupils in the long run.”
@ onegiftedgal is it really true?

DDs primary school have said this about her asthma: “we can give her her inhaler if she needs it, she should come in” when I rang in saying she was wheezing severely and needing her inhaler every two hours. She was 4 at the time,and had previously been given a cup of water when she was coughing and wheezing at school

Attendance percentages are not reliable. My child had a GP appointment and got in to school one hour late. Her attendance for that day was shown as absent all morning! If they go to a medical appointment and miss their morning or (straight after lunch) afternoon register then they are marked absent for the whole morning or afternoon.

I'm just wondering would they loosen a little if she did some schoolwork at home? When my sister had leukaemia she was off for periods of time over 3 years for chemo, operations, etc. She used to do her school work in hospital when she was feeling better that way she only missed say 15%.

My kids' secondary is exactly the same about illness - send them in and we'll look after them. They only reluctantly let my DS home when his temperature had gone up from 38. something to 38.9 in the space of an hour.

It's infuriating. I'm of the 'off to school I'm sure you're fine' mindset unless they are obviously ill and even I find this approach unreasonable and unfair.

School medical rooms end up full of ill kids, which in itself can't be good. There was a virus at DS's school earlier this year and it spread through the entire school, I think nearly half the kids had it over a period of a month. I know this isn't entirely down to kids having to go in when they're ill but it can't have helped.

I recently had a chat with the Head of Pastoral Care at our secondary, after dc's attendance dipped to 80% due to an illness. I wanted to talk to him about dd's return to school, as they cannot manage a full day yet, or even consecutive days. I thanked him for the courtesy with which we were being treated and said that I appreciated that they had not pestered us regarding attendance, and accepted that I would be being contacted by the EWO because of dc's attendance.

"Oh no," he replied, "That's not going to happen. We don't believe that EWOs are the best way to deal with attendance problems. One of the joys of being an Academy is that we have the freedom to address attendance the way we think best for each student."

Dc's return to school is being very sensitively managed, with their individual needs addressed.

(I love the HoPC at our school. He is awesome. )

I work in a school and I have never heard of this before.
They are teachers; not medical experts - it is not THEIR call , whether a child is well enough to be in school, or not.
I personally, feel dreadful seeing children, in school, struggling with illness after parents have sent them to school.
Keep your child home if they're unwell; you're the Mum, you know them best.

Attendance percentages are not reliable. My child had a GP appointment and got in to school one hour late. Her attendance for that day was shown as absent all morning! If they go to a medical appointment and miss their morning or (straight after lunch) afternoon register then they are marked absent for the whole morning or afternoon.

The percentages are calculated according to a strict formula.
If school starting time is 8:40, then kids who arrive in the next 15 minutes are maked as late and those who arrive after that are marked as absent, for that registration period, which is the whole morning. This is the law, not the school's choice.

Which is why, if you need to take a kid out of school early, as long as they hit the afternoon registration, they usually don't care if they leave early

that's so sweet of you Ellyess, I hope you are as well as possible too. DS1 is 11, and was only diagnosed with it in January. I was sure he had glandular fever, was back and forth to the GP, blood tests, antibiotics which did nothing. GP referred on as nothing was really showing on the test results, but his throat and neck glands were constantly inflamed and he was so lethargic.

The Paediatrician did say DS2's age meant there's a good chance of making a full recovery. It's been so hard to see him struggle but the pre-diagnosis bit was worse with the school pressure etc. I had some fun and games with the PE dept, but after a couple of official complaints(!) we got to a sensible solution.

What do you prefer , school or the EWO

Rubbish, the Educational Welfare Officer is there for the welfare of the child, not the school.

I've had similar happen with my own DD & her old primary school as their attendance records were poor so they picked on the families that would listen to try & get that number up. My DD does have underlying health problems, but when I bypassed the school & rang the EWO myself about similar threats over attendance. They really were not on the schools side

@DobbinsVeil

That was also on my daughters list of ailments too. Turned out she was B12 deficient due to an inability to digest it properly. It is a very common misdiagnosis & B12 injections can help a lot. Unfortunately not all doctors are knowledgeable in Pernicious Anaemia & put too much store on what are known to be unreliable blood tests. This link explains it all & theres an excellent Facebook support group in the links section. They were a godsend to us when chasing treatment & diagnosis for DD ...

www.b12deficiency.info/

What the hell is this school playing at? Very high handed, IMHO!

Murine. Do NOT entrust your daughter to this or another school! They obviously cannot care for her! I realise you do have to send her to school The only thing I can think of is to make an appointment with the Head to tell them that asthma is a life-threatening condition and an attack must be treated early with her inhaler and nobody is to withhold the use of the inhaler if her daughter starts to get signs of an attack.
I am so appalled. I could tell everyone here of horror stories but suffice it to say:
All parents of asthmatic children; Please make absolutely sure your child's school knows how your child must be treated and that there is no equivocation on the matter.

RockinHippy. Yesss! The EWO is there for the child! Please make use of them!

Our EWO actually said to me to ignore the school, she said its her decision whether or not to refer for a prosecution, not the school's (although our school employed an agency, bit like a bailiff, to put the frighteners on - they sent letters quoting quasi-legal jargon to make it look like they were "official").

School tried to use the EWO threat to me too and seemed very disappointed when I told them that I had contacted them myself and had been told that as dd was under the care of health professionals and I was keeping school informed then they wouldn't be interested in any referral from school.
Disappointingly because of cuts our LA plans to do away with most of the EWO service which was a voice of reason when dealing with dd's school and are only retaining staff to handle prosecutions.

Massive overstep. In this situation you just say ‘no thank-you, she’s not well enough to come in’ and move on. EWO won’t do anything.

I feel for your poor daughter.It is support that is needed from the school at this time.Have they helped in anyway by e-mailing notes or homework.
If you haven’t already,maybe it might be a good idea to have a meeting with the school.My daughter has been off school for months(she has since been diagnosed with a chronic but manageable illness).The school have been supportive and helpful with being too pushy.