Threatening letter from school regarding DD's attendance

[Sofi88]

We received a letter from DD's school yesterday saying DD's attendance is below average, and hence not good enough and had to be improved. The letter was threatening, and the words "Be Careful!" was highlighted in huge letters. The letter goes on to say that we have to make sure DD is in school every day from now on, so that her attendance improves. It also states they may contact the Education Welfare Officer if it does not improve.

Thing is though, DD has been off sick ONE day in the period this letter refers to, and I have picked her up early to go to medical appointments three times. One of these times I picked her up at 12 (only available appointment), but the other two I picked her up at 3:20 - ten minutes before I was due to pick her up anyway.

DD has a medical condition, which she has so far been treated for by her GP and a specialist nurse. She has actually had less appointments than normal this term, due to her now being transferred to a specialist paediatrician at the hospital. Our first appointment there is in December, so her GP and the nurse have told us to simply wait for that appointment unless there are any concerns in between. The school knows about her condition.

And also, she had one day off due to illness, where we phoned in and explained she was too ill to go in, which they said they were fine with. DH then went in at 3:30 to pick up her homework. Apart from this one day and the three times I've had to pick her up early due to medical appointments, she has had no absence!

Doesn't my child have a right to get treated for her condition, as well as a basic right to stay home when she is too ill to go in? Apart from this letter, we haven't received anything else - like them asking for medical evidence, doctor's notes etc. We have simply got the impression everything has been done right. The teacher has not mentioned anything when I've picked her up early for a GP appointment. You'd think they ask for medical evidence before sending out a threatening letter like this? A note from her GP would be no problem at all to provide. Would be a lot nicer to have them ask for that, rather than this threatening letter!

Does anyone know anything about this?

Please don't stress about this, worst case scenario is that EWO looks at your case, and sees she has a genuine medical issue.

The school get worried when the overall attendence drop and send out letters.
If you feel the letter is threatening right a letter of complaint to the school governer's.

Don't fret about it.

After drop off, pop into the school office with the letter and say you are confused as her attendance hasn't been that low, and please can they print out her attendance record for you to check.

(You may find it is something really stupid like reception started on reduced hours and those first 3 weeks have been included in an automatic letter generation run for Reception when they shouldn't have been. In which case many other yR parents will have had the letter too.)

Picking up 10 mins early won't impact attendance records, it is done on mornings & afternoon registers.

It sounds like an automated letter, but you should send a response setting out the facts so that it is on record. I really feel that someone in the school should engage their brains before sending out these automated letters anyway - surely it can't be that hard for someone to go through the list and cross off the people like you who really don't need to be bullied about attendance?

I’d query this too, it sounds wildly over the top, no matter how routine it is.

$Being 5 minutes late after registration may count as a half day absence.*

With school attendance, it's not about how much time they actually spend there. They will be registered at 2 times in the day - morning and after dinner. Taking her out of school at 12 may mean she missed her afternoon mark and counts as being absent.

Personally I do feel it's bollocks and literally a box ticking exercise for ofsted to show they're doing 'something' but theoretically it seems a child could be taken home at 1:30-2pm every day and still have a full attendance. Yet be 10 minutes late because you tried to get an early appointment and it doesn't count!

Why is not discrimination against those children with disabilities? There was a kid in my school who had cystic fibrosis - I wonder what attendance letters he would have got if this had been a thing then. And how much more ill with sick children being sent in to school to make up their attendance.

Apologies, rant over.

Ignore it. Throw it in the bin. We've had these a couple of times and nothing comes of them.

We had one after chicken pox. Shes had more days off since with sickness bug too. Nothing I can do about it tbh.

I agree that this is probably a standard letter. If your child has genuine medical needs her absence through sickness will not lead to,your being prosecuted.

I agree you should ask to see a printout showing her absences so you can crosscheck it against your own records. Some teachers are very careless about taking attendance registers so mistakes may have been made. I know this from personal experience from my DDs school and also from my time as a data manager in a school.

Sorry, was about to query this:

Being 5 minutes late after registration may count as a half day absence.

I’m amazed about this. How can five minutes seriously be treated as if a whole half day was missed?

It’s basically false accounting, isn’t it? It doesn’t give a true reflection of the actual facts, and if anybody were to do any research on, say, the effect of persistent absence on children’s learning, recording data in such a misleading way would render the research useless.

Even as a rough estimate she's had 90 "sessions" (ie mornings and afternoons) since September, then that percentage gives 4 sessions or 2 full days off. If their sessions have been lower than this, the percentage could be correct. Especially if the letter was generated last week.

The percentage will get better as the year goes on.

I got one after my dd was off with tonsillitis- the school knew she was ill and I was initially as I felt as you OP but I am sure it's automated-triggered by a percentage and probably to tick a box.

It does seem wrong to include her 10 min early collections as absences. I would probably just ask for clarification and confirm on going support. Make sure you and school are working together now and for the future.

I hope you respond:
"Please do refer to the attendance officer so I can explain that my daughter has a medical condition that she has to attend appointments for, as you are always informed about notified about."
Box-ticking, bureaucratic dickheads!
Personally, I think 95% is very good attendance.

It will be a generic letter setting out automatically.
What you need to do is to give the school all evidence of your daughters illness. Get a letter from your hospital consultant detailing how this illness affects your daughter and there will be ongoing medical appointments, and due to the illness she will be taking days off at times. With medical appointments you cannot pick and choose your times.

My son has crohns [ diagnosed when he was 8 ]. At one point his attendance was down to under 30 %. His school were great because they had all information. He was given work to do at home, his tutors emailed him work for his exams. I gave them all information about his crohns. I made sure every teacher was aware of it. I also printed out information for schools from crohns and colitis UK which was a massive help. See if there is anything similar that you can do.

From my experience working in paeds some schools can be really awful to families when a child has ongoing medical appointments and seem to think doctors can give everyone a 16:15 appointment.

It'll be a generic letter that they send out under a certain attendance figure. They likely generate them every half term. Do you show appointment letters for her appointments? That way if they were to look into her attendance, while the figure wouldn't change it gives evidence that the absence was genuine.

Could be that the school doesn’t formally know about your DD diagnosis. Maybe DD teacher has assumed you’ve told the school office, you assume she’s passed on the msg to them?

I’d talk to the office and attendance officer to make sure that the school is properly aware. Follow up your conversations with email.

DS once missed the 100% attendance award for a 9am x-ray (for an injury sustained in school, but the department closed early when I took him to Minor Injuries the previous day) He was signed in by breaktime and that was his only absence all year. It taught me to play the game, make sure they are in at 9am and 1pm and actually miss more school because all the travel time is in school time. The system is ridiculous but they are the hoops set for the schools to jump through no matter how illogical and damaging to good will.

Thanks for your messages, I feel a lot more relaxed now. The time I had to pick her up at 12 was for an appointment with the specialist nurse, which is quite far away. The appointment was actually at 1, but it takes over half an hour to get there and I wanted to allow time for her to go to the toilet and calm down before going in. Appointment finished at 2, and it would have taked 30-40 mins to get her back to school, which I thought wasn't worth it. But maybe we should have gone back to school that day.

It's hard, as it's the personal aspect too. DD struggles at these appointments, and often needs comfort after, or a treat. She only turned 4 in August

It's an automated letter because she has got a trigger point. Target attendance at sons school is 98% and he often falls below due to sports injuries and such as he has hyper mobile joints combined with a very athletic focus. Most of the time it's them calling me to come pick him up.

File it in the bin and calm down, it's really nothing to get upset about. No one is sat in an office judging your parenting or anything. It'll come up over the year and if it doesnt an attendance officer will look at her file, see she has a known condition and go about their day.

I've been told by friends that schools ask for medical evidence if it's needed, and apart from that they have to believe the parents. I've heard it's only in extreme situations they ask for doctors notes and the likes. That's why I haven't brought them in - because they haven't asked, they've seemed fine whenever I've told them about early pick-ups

Poor thing. OP I'd ignore it. Schools are under a lot of pressure over attendance but that isn't your burden to bear. It's not like your daughter will be putting her school attendance figures on her CV.

But maybe we should have gone back to school that day.

It wouldn't have helped with the attendance figures, as afternoon registration had already been taken.

Ignore the letter.

Your daughter is in school when she is well and doesn't have a medical appointment so there is nothing to discuss.

I've had these letters before and they do sound intimidating. I've also had the school contact me because of my children's attendance in past years to ask if there's anything they can do to 'help'. I told them unless they could cure my children's current chickenpox, stomach bug, pneumonia etc then no, they couldn't help. 🙄 It's annoying because the vast majority of years my kids have had between 96-99% attendance. Ignore, ignore, ignore.

95% attendance over a year is a half a day off every 2 weeks.

80% attendance is a day off per week.

In the case of attendance I think the percentages make the absence not look so bad. 80% attendance sounds okish until you realise its a day off per week.

I've heard it's only in extreme situations they ask for doctors notes and the likes.

I think most schools do ask for evidence of appointments. Both my children's schools ask for a copy of hospital letters or an appointment card. One receptionist years ago said they need it as evidence for Ofsted but I don't know if that's actually the case or not.