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.

I think its important to be clear that expecting doctors notes for the trots or a minor virus isn't actually going to assist in those kinds of situation either. If anything it might be detrimental, if schools and GPs are to waste resources checking up on and proving sickness in cases like OPs.

Oh, absolutely. We are all agreed on that!

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.

Indeed, and the more schools, medical staff and associated professions spend chasing up parents for occasional absence, or fir illness that joins on to the beginning and end of term, the fewer resources there are available to deal with actual concerns. In my experience in those “complex” situations the GPs opinion and school attendance patterns are part of a wider picture involving a range of professionals. That’s not what’s being talked about here - a child with good attendance, and supportive parents having an occasional absence isn’t remotely the same as trying to evidence munchausens by proxy.

No, it isn't . But, at least to begin with it, her attendances were sporadic two or three day absences. this , coupled with a pattern of school changing and some other stuff rang my alarm bells.

A blanket ban on any medical notes, which some GPs seem to be imposing would definitely be a bit obstructive! And, indeed was obstructive with that case.

I only brought it up because I wanted to illustrate that schools do need the help of medical professionals and others are suggesting teachers and school satff are not to meddle in attendance at all. Which is not a safe idea.

A medical report requested as part of s child protect investigation is quite different to a doctors letter confirming a child attended the surgery. Extreme cases made bad legislation - processes exist to support safeguarding, conflating a safeguarding concern with regular attendance management is counterproductive to say the least.

@Piggywaspushed , yes. It is a big deal. Instead of talking to me, the doctor could have been talking to someone who actually needed her time.

Yeah, I suppose so jelly but we were continually asked a s a school to build up a pattern based on notes from GPs. Our attendance coding was not acceptable evidence.

It is all madly bureaucratic.

Even more interesting when it is a member of staff who claimed to be ill before Christmas. Unfortunately for them you need to be a little brighter than booking a TA's husband, who is a taxi driver, to take them to the airport.

It resulted in a bollocking and a written warning.

Until schools stop getting graded on their absences during inspections and with other interested parties this won't change. The schools don't want to hassle you about your child's attendance - we have to.

This ^

The school/headteacher/attendance officer don’t decide these policies! The DfE, the LA and/or the trust decide the policies and we have to follow them.

Even when we had a child being treated for cancer we were hauled over the coals for authorising too much of their absence!

On the flip side, years ago I raised concerns about a child’s frequent “illness” despite them being in fine fettle immediately before and after the “illnesses”. Turned out Mum was an addict who often couldn’t get out of bed to get child to school. Good job we Hadn’t just taken Mums word for it eh? But us school office types are “not too bright” so.......

I don’t provide proof because I am Not prepared to be gainsaid on whether or not my children should be at school. For minor illnesses that is a parent’s decision. I am not changing my boundaries on this because schools are under pressure.

Even when we had a child being treated for cancer we were hauled over the coals for authorising too much of their absence!

Doesn’t this tell you how ludicrous the system is?

Even when we had a child being treated for cancer we were hauled over the coals for authorising too much of their absence!

But the ethical response to this isn't to pressurize the child with cancer, is it? I understand that schools are being put in a hard place by Ofstead, that doesn't mean the tendency of many schools to try and pass that pressure on to parents in a way that is not good for the NHS or the child is a good one.

@piggywaspushed

“you don't work in a school” no but I know plenty who do and even 1 person who works in education at an inspectorate level - and they all also disagree with such rules.

“Governments would tell you results and standards have been driven up” of course they would! They want to appear to be improving education but imo and that of many others they’re wrong! It’s really a whole other thread but kids are leaving school with huge gaps in knowledge, lacking critical thinking skills and incapable of doing their own research.

“one factor is that attendance at school is FAR better than it was in the 70s and 80s when it was, frankly, pretty sporadically monitored and many students had low attendance.” I’d LOVE to see actual evidence for this given it wasn’t monitored then as it is now. Certainly my experience and that of the teachers I know who were teachers then is that it was no worse then than it is now. If anything attendance was better then because families were treated individually and supported rather than blamed.

“or apply different rules to different students.” Nonsense! You can apply the rules differently to different students because their needs differ. One size fits all patently does not work.

“I am not having a pop at GPs” yes you really were no point backtracking now

“how anyone proposes raising attendance” this comment alone shows how you along with those that create and enforce these rules are massively missing the point! The focus should be on engaging children and their families with education. Make it interesting and useful and attendance would naturally be better anyway! Same is true of tackling issues like bullying which are a major reason many children avoid school, feigning or even actually being ill because of it. Numerous threads on here plus my personal experience of how shit schools are at dealing with bullying means I truly believe if schools were properly held to account for NOT addressing bullying attendance and educational outcomes would hugely improve. One bully going ignored can result in several children avoiding school.

“because the obligation to rigorously monitor attendance in the same way stops at 16.” This comment is also a fucking disgrace to be honest as it shows that schools don’t care about pupils, they just don’t want to get in trouble from the authorities! Completely the wrong perspective!

“you wouldn't have needed a letter form a GP every time your DD had a flare up graphite. One letter to cover the condition and subsequent illness form a specialist normally covers this. ime consultants do this very willingly.” That might be true of your school but don’t dare to presume you know my experience.

IF you’d bothered to read my post properly you’d have read that we DID have a consultants letter which the school had a copy of, there were numerous calls, emails, meetings... until I had that meeting with the head. It was appallingly badly handled and frankly I can’t help but think my mentioning the words “disability discrimination” at that meeting are a big part of why they started to do as they should have been from the beginning!

And as for the budget comment - why is schools budget more important than gps?! It’s not!!

“And generally its not "feckless" families who lie about their kids being ill when they are missing a couple of days, it's POORER families.” Absolutely!

Most teachers are in unions, it’s beyond me why those teachers/unions aren’t pushing back UP the way and as a group (which is always more powerful) saying to ofsted/govt/powers that be ‘these rules are ludicrous! Trust us to know our pupils and their families and to act accordingly. Give families a little leeway to account for NORMAL buildup of immune systems and childhood illness’

They’re quick enough to use the unions when it comes to pay or pensions.

@Sheraxade “All the schools round here accept an appointment card with the time you attended slotted in” that STILL means an unnecessary appointment being made!

“Schools have a duty of care to know about their pupils welfare, but draconian attendance policy undermines that” totally agree. It’s set up a “them and us” dynamic that’s completely dysfunctional and serves nobody in reality.

Oh, and a first aider isn't a medically trained professional. damn straight! I’ve had horrific experiences with school based first aiders almost dangerously so.

The register has been amended to reflect he was ill. yay! Excellent update op

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.

GPs aren't there 'for the benefit of schools' to justify 2-3 days absence of a child for (VERY) common self limiting viral illnesses so the school can cover its back regarding attendance figures. Waste of time and resources that will directly impact other patient care.

What they say applies in most schools for long absences, over a week, same as for teachers. You can take a certain amount of days of before needing a doctor's note.

graphista you are cherry picking my comments. The comment about attendance after 16 deliberately used the word obligation to explain why one school may have overlooked poor attendance of a year 13, that doesn't make it right but it is about resourcing. It is a loophole that needs closing.

I do know that attendance was worse in the 70s , 80s and 90s. that is widely known in education circles.

Many posters on MN lament children not being treated the same as regarding rules. Obviously any school applies sensitivity to special cases : this is not what I meant. Quite the opposite : I meant that schools should not be overlooking attendance of some students because they were 'nice ' families and so should be let off.

Yes, some students have low attendance because of bullying. This needs to be addressed, of course it does. It does not account for the low absence or sporadic attendance of most students.

My attempt to 'have apop' at GPs was perhaps misinterpret. I guess I emnat people always point fingers at schools for everything but that we are stuck between a rock and a hard place.

As many educationalists have pointed out on here it is not just a legal obligation for us to track attendance, it is also a moral one. Schools, however, absolutely are 'properly' (and continuously) held to account for pupil outcomes and to say we are not is a bit inflammatory! One of the markers of pupil outcomes is attendance!

I don't like your implication that I am a shoddy bureaucrat. I care deeply about students, am very concerned about bullying and have until recently worked extremely hard to ensure high levels of student welfare and happiness, which includes good attendance at school where it is possible.

Your inspectorate friend who disagrees with the rules will still be imposing or checking them!

Raising attendance is focusing on engaging young children and families. It is an enormous and tortuous job.

Apologies for missing the detail about your DD's consultant. I was talking in general terms : your school messed up and it is ridiculous. In general terms, most schools would (and , in fact absolutely should) accept a consultant's letter.

My daughter had flu. Actual flu (not a heavy cold). A gp never saw her but sensibly took my word for it in a telephone conversation, a printout of which was what the school wanted to "prove" I wasn't shitting them.
If the school had a problem with me and thought I was lying they should deal with that individually.

As you don’t, they’ll have to go without and just leave it as unauthorised

If it's unauthorised, it only looks bad for the school AFAIK. You have done everything correctly, they can fuck off to the far side of fuck with their arsey emails.

One of the markers of pupil outcomes is attendance!

It may be one marker, but not the only one and not is it necessarily the most important one. This OP is talking about her child having a common virus, needing a couple of days to recover and being asked for medical evidence for the school to accept she isn’t lying.

It’s not about a child with 80% attendance, or frequent, sporadic absence, or who is school refusing. There may be a moral argument for monitoring attendance but what was asked for goes well beyond monitoring to suggesting a parent is lying with no basis for thinking that. That’s nothing to do with welfare, or caring about a students safety and all to do with keeping Ofsted at bay. Ofsted picked an attendance rate pretty much at random - I think quoted as 96%, which is incredibly high when you think about it, in most terms one or two days absence would see you fall under. I would suggest there’s a massive problem with the inspection system if it effectively pitches schools -v- parents.

In terms of outcomes, if my child missing 3 days of school in any year is enough to scupper their education there is something very wrong with the education system. And if one of the outcome I want is for my child to be well balanced, to know when they need to suck it up and go in and to know when they need to stay home and rest, to know how to both work hard and care for themselves, a random target set by whichever government body is neither here nor there.

You keep referring to safeguarding concerns, I’m in Scotland where we have none of this nonsense about constantly monitoring attendance. Oddly enough schools still manage to identify those kids for whom poor attendance (amongst other issues) point to child protection concerns, we still manage to identify and support vulnerable children and still get the evidence needed for child protection processes. We just don’t treat every parent with suspicion from the get go.

I never said the 3 days should be chased up. I repeatedly said it shouldn't. hey ho.

I also do not treat every parent with suspicion but disabling us from seeking GP's notes when our spidey sense tingle isn't helpful, that said.

Scotland's education system and safeguarding procedures is by no means perfect.It does seem less bogged down by bureaucracy, however.

Contrary to the belief on here we do not spend all day chasing hapless ill children around!

But the comment earlier (and then reposted in half its form) that poorer families are those who take their children out of school because flights are £300 each rather does speak volumes about the prism through which many MNers see social disadvantage.

You will know jelly that many many parents have very cavalier attitudes to attendance which begin early in a child's school career and that the effect on achievement, success, happiness, friendship forming and future patterns of work attendance can be huge.

It gets thrown into relief quite strongly when students are kept at home feeling, often mildly, unwell on the day of a public exam and parents think they can just come in the next day and sit the exam.

I do not work in a very draconian school re attendance. I was hugely frustrate though last year when I kept flagging up the low attendance of 7 of my year 11 class , wondering what was being done to engage them and support them in attending better. Then , when all 7 of those students achieved low results, the accountability fell to me and I was asked what more I could or should have done. I have since heard that a couple of those studnets have dropped out of college courses. These are important patterns that affect life long chances and I felt like I was banging my head against a brick wall. Perhaps , in Scotland, someone would have sorted these families out but I don't know how. What is takes is someone with enough clout (ant tie and resources) in a key role in a school who actually cares : and , indeed, not someone who just triggers texts and standard letters to homes and fills in spreadsheets : because that achieves very very little other than getting parents like OP's backs up for no good reason.

I also do not treat every parent with suspicion but disabling us from seeking GP's notes when our spidey sense tingle isn't helpful, that said.

But the reason GPs won’t do notes for schools now is because of the sheer volume of schools asking for notes for 2/3 day absences to keep themselves right with Ofsted.

And yes there does need to be balance, attendance is important not least in setting good habits for school, college and working life, providing routine and predictability for kids is so important. I did laugh a bit at the idea of poorer parents saving £600 on flights for holiday so in that sense you and I are talking about a completely different population of children for whom school may literally be the only stable thing in their lives - and in that sense supporting good attendance matters hugely.

I think we’re on the same side here 😁

While I think asking for Drs notes after 3 days is OTT, I do think that GP surgeries and schools could communicate better where there are reasonable concerns.

A small number of can claim all kinds of unverified medical diagnoses to account for terrible attendance. The child might never see the GP, or if they do, the GP might not be aware of how often the child is being kept off school. If GPs won't communicate with schools about child health then I am not sure how a school can be sure that the child isn't having their entitlement to a full time education prevented by a parent who might have problems.

School nursing services, who previously would have been able to be the conduit for this sort of information without having to bother the GP surgery have been cut in many areas and can often only get involved where concerns are already at a high level, involving social services etc.

I think it's unhelpful for surgeries to hold schools in this kind of contempt when the school's aim is to keep children safe from harm. Schools also need to moderate and only request this information where there is cause for concern. Blanket 3 day rules are unnecessary.

Funny Skysblue I always think it's the arsey parents who spout crap when they don't know what they're talking about are the ones that are "not too bright"

I think we are too jelly!