To think it's very unreasonable for school not to take my word DS is sick.

[VioletsArePurple]

DS has been home sick (sore throat, fever, headache) for three days. I have emailed them each day to inform them he is ill. No response from them on day 1 or day 2. He's going back tomorrow. Today (day 3) I got I an email from school with the following text: "...Just wanted to check in regarding how XXX is doing and also from an attendance perspective. Our school policy around holidays is to mark a child as unauthorised absence unless we have medical evidence for their illness. I wonder if you have been to the GP or hospital and if you have any evidence of this or a prescription bottle you could email us a photo of so I can change his attendance to illness once he comes back in."

AS it happens I was at the GP this afternoon for an appointment for me. And behind reception there was a sign stating:

SICK NOTES FOR SCHOOL ABSENCE
Your GP does not provide this information.
Please do not book an appointment.
A school should accept a note from the child's parent or guardian.
Speak to reception for further information.

Now, I should point out I actually love our school. But this email annoyed me. They have no idea how much I was looking forward to the first day of school. They can have DS all of next break to make up for it if they like.

Sorry, 'faking' it not taking it!

And, sorry, I did mean to say that none of you would want schools just to roll over and accept the parent's word for it there. Legall, we have a duty of care.

OP , no one thinks you are fibbing though! So it is v frustrating for you.

buffet you just really proved my point that so many people are slightly disbelieving about the dire circumstances of school budgets.

Both the NHS and education are being starved of funding whilst being asked to complete ridiculous and increasing tasks.

I know form my own experience that schools have had to become more and more involved in supporting chronic illness due to less support coming from many other places.

The previous comment about office staff being dim was very unkind and actually aggressive in the context of the whole post. Not you buffet. A different PP.

*I get that you find this aggrieving but why is it always schools people have a pop at here and not doctors for being so awkward. You shouldn't have to provide a note for such a short absence, no : but for longer absences hospitals, consultant etc usually happily write letters but not GPs (or they charge a lot for the privilege)

Because official guidance is absolutely clear that school aren't entitled to ask for this.

Therefore it is not doctors who are being awkward, it is schools. They in their turn are following their own professional guidance.

If schools really want to insist on this, they need to be prepared to pay for the doctors' reports in question.

Because the official guidance was back written to support GPs in their battle against workload? Quite rightly but it leaves schools powerless.

No, it wasn't backwritten. The preceding version was the same. Essentially it was written to support what sensible schools were doing.

Are you sure because I am pretty sure that guidance was not around in the 1990s.

Anyway, in essence most of it makes sense. The difficulty arises with persistent absenteeism and frequent short absences with parents claiming recurrent illness, sometimes spuriously.

Back in the day, GPs used to phone us and pass on their concerns about spurious claims of illness, for example. The two way street seems to have closed.

So many parents lie around holiday times, this is the position schools have been put in.

Arguably, parents have been put in the position of lying because attendance rules are farcical and everyone knows it. How LA maintain a stance that a 6 year olds education will be irreparably damaged by missing 5 days of school is beyond me.

Well if GPS don't provide sick notes then you can't produce one for school. Your not a bloody Dr. Schools worry so much about their OFSTED data that they make ridiculous demands on parents that cannot be met.

schools weren't asking for notes in the 1990s.

It has never been part of the GP contract. Historically GPs may have been willing to do small numbers of things outside their contract, but they no longer have capacity.

Have similar. My gp kindly printed out a note of the telephone consult I did when dd was poorly. - family member picked it up and we gave it to the school. She (the gp) was really angry with the school and said she would write again to them separately. She had already written to complain.

Back in the day, GPs used to phone us and pass on their concerns about spurious claims of illness, for example.

I hope that isn't true because it would be a major breach of confidentiality.

So many parents lie around holiday times, this is the position schools have been put in
I have sympathy with the position of schools here, but nonetheless if a parent says their child is ill, schools really need to tread carefully before claiming they aren't.

I'm usually massively strict and Pearl clutchy/bosom hoikey about taking your child out of school during term time. Since my school has started this stupid shit, I'm actually considering it for a family wedding. It's a waste of my GP's time.

It's all true, A1 (I should be clear it was after permission from parents or under safeguarding laws : we used to have multi agency meetings with nurse and GPs attended). And we most certainly did ask for doctor's notes in the 90s!!

Was it really a big deal for the doctor to do that, though , bellini ?

I often have to attendance records to employers or other schools. It's a bit annoying but it is the work of a few moments.

(The passport forms aren't though. Grr.)

DH is a GP. He won’t do sick notes for schools. He has enough work to do.

And, sorry, I did mean to say that none of you would want schools just to roll over and accept the parent's word for it there. Legall, we have a duty of care.

I think you will find that doctors feel they have a duty of care towards the patients whose cancer symptoms might be missed if they had to spend their surgery seeing every school child with a virus or tummy bug. Not to mention the hideous contagion issues if every child with a short-term but highly contagious illness is to be cluttering up the waiting room of the surgery and putting immune-compromised patients at risk.

Was it really a big deal for the doctor to do that, though , bellini ?

Well, yes, when the entire pointless exercise gets repeated hundreds of times a year and the DfE guidance is that schools shouldn't be asking for it.

I think if anything GPs have a duty to resist this sort of stupidity, in the interests of patient safety and welfare and of proper budget utilisation. Which to be fair, they seem to be doing.

And really, there's a middle ground between always taking the word of the parent every time and demanding GP confirmation for minor illnesses in children without persistent absence issues that don't require medical attention. Let's not pretend we don't all know this. Plenty of schools even manage to achieve it.

Was it really a big deal for the doctor to do that, though , bellini ?

The issue isn't with doctors providing a printed out record (or parents providing appointment cards etc.) of the medically necessary appointments that children have been taken to it's with schools seeming to require doctors' appointments when it is not medically necessary and not in the best interests of the child.

Unnecessary doctors' appointments are a big deal. Both because each appointment is expensive and in also in terms of the knock on effect with other patients not seen, infection spread, etc.

Yeah, that's completely different from confirmation that X was there for his medicine review or ed psych session or whatever. Nothing particularly wrong in that. Totally different from expecting a child with the squits to go and sit in a GP waiting room and waste an appointment, whilst merrily and unavoidably infecting others.

Was it really a big deal for the doctor to do that, though

GPS aren’t there for the benefit of the schools! They’re working to help people who are so sick, they need medical advice/care. I’d be seriously pissed of if I thought my child was being kept waiting because the, already under pressure doctors was busy having to see children with miner ailments that parents are happy to deal with at home and writing letter to schools, in order for them to tick boxes. It’s a massive deal if all the schools demand that. No wonder we can’t retain doctors.

I think it also depends on your relationship with the school.
My DS has appalling attendance in Y13 due to MH. We kept the school informed and were never chased.
When my daughter was in hospital, out of the ordinary, we were asked for copies of the hospital paperwork. Fair enough.
I would suspect that, over time, schools know who take at face value and who not to.

I agree with boomboom

To an extent , though, I do think GPs are there for the benefit of schools in the sense of there for the benefit of children and multi agency partnerships.

I am just not sure what anyone would have schools do with, say a child who is off for three days every few weeks, or off every Friday, with a parental claim of ' the tonsillitis is back again' or 'grumbling appendix' or 'a migraine again'. This is really rather common.

It isn't all about Ofsted. School exist to improve children's life chances. Part of this is about regular attendance patterns and achievement. Schools also help to protect children from harm.

I once encountered a girl who was being kept at home by her mother with ailment after ailment after ailment, many very serious. Schools cannot diagnose. We needed expert assistance and it was not forthcoming as GPs wouldn't write notes. These notes were requested to help us establish a pattern of reporting of illnesses. This is an example of a very complex case where we also beloved the mother was pulling the wool over various medical people's eyes. In the end, one GP voiced her concerns and was prepared to write this down and that proved enormously important. The mother herself attempted to raise huge concerns with Ofsted about the school 'alleging' various things. We cannot protect ourselves from that unless we have medical evidence.

Hey ho. Just not sure what schools are supposed to do.