To think this is fucked up (school 100% attendance)

[cricketmum84]

Recieved this letter from school before the start of term tomorrow.

I have a lovely, well behaved and studious year 8 girl who would love to attend 100%. However she had a bowel condition that causes extreme pain 2-3 days per month, enough so that she is unable to attend school.

Unfortunately she doesn't have the "resilience" needed to get these rewards.

Utter twats.

WTF!

Sorry, should have put "child to go to school", not work!

Just had a thought.

You may have diabetic children at school. Who need lunch on time.

They are also covered by equality act. And they are likely to not attend 100% because illness can really affect sugars.

So as a result of this they could be made even more unwell whilst they wait for lunch longer because those luckily enough not to have a long term health issue are all getting their lunch first.

Main illness at school was vomiting bug. Once I projectile vomited all over the floor outside the office. Where I was sat for a bit of fresh air. I can just imagine being asked to hand in a special pin before going home, or handing it on return to school from a vomiting bug. The definition of adding insult to injury!

@SpringSparrow

That is really awful, penalising children for being sick and taking the pin badges away from children, when they fall below 100%! Is this a high school or a primary school?

The taking it off back them has made me so shocked! That just seems overly mean

One of mine got two 100% attendance awards. She also had 52 detentions in one of the years, and had two weeks working in isolation.

Wouldn’t it be far far better to reward the students who don’t get any negative behaviour points, even including lates and uniform infringements? This is much fairer and means children who are poorly or have family problems aren’t discriminated against. Her friend, who always behaved, didn’t get his attendance award because his dad died of cancer, and he had some days off.

I work in a school and if they did this I would be speaking to the Head. Absolutely ridiculous.

Oh FFS. Someone else will have said it - but on the one hand, children are supposed to stay at home because they are "vectors of infection" (FFS again) - and now they're being rewarded for 100% attendance. This is seriously screwed up on every count.

I wouldn't get too excited about this, the kids jumping the lunch queue and wearing their badges with pride are not going to be popular

@BastardMonkfish

I wouldn't get too excited about this, the kids jumping the lunch queue and wearing their badges with pride are not going to be popular

Which is another way it will likely be counterproductive. When the children get teased for their badges and associated privileges then they will take the obvious route to get rid of them and stay off school for a day!

Please make an official complaint.

Its bullshit discrimination. Threaten them with action under Equalities legislation.

Good god, no idea how this is allowed to happen, what utter b*llshit. Our school is just as bad. It doesn't bother me, my children will go to school as much as they can but I would never force them in unwell for a poxy badge. It will however bother some children, poor things.

@KnightError

Oh FFS. Someone else will have said it - but on the one hand, children are supposed to stay at home because they are "vectors of infection" (FFS again) - and now they're being rewarded for 100% attendance. This is seriously screwed up on every count.

Totally! Let's get a 100% attendance badge and spread my germs 🙄🙄

Yep, that’s truly unfair and I honestly despair that people responsible for educating our children have dreamt this one up 🙄. My DD goes to this “type” of high school, everyone MUST conform and there’s no room for creativity whatsoever. She had a week and a half off at the end of last term due to having a life threatening condition and needing an emergency operation. So if they had this scheme at her school she’d have missed out! I really do wonder what exactly they think they’re preparing our children for? A life of misery where they are under ridiculous pressure to attend even when they’re unwell?!

What an absolute load of bollocks. Lunch queue jumping! Ffs there's a way to create targets for the other kids to pick on

It’s completely discriminatory against children with medical conditions and disabilities. Had the same problem when I was at school, loads of kids that misbehaved all the time in class got 100% attendance and was praised for it, where as I had (and still have) multiple medical conditions that meant I was very ill and probably got 85% attendance at best.

They used to do these rewards when I was at school - special trips, ipod nanos, gift vouchers and other rewards for the children who were healthy. It is shit and it's the indoctrination that leads to adults being proud of themselves for going to work with contagious illnesses with no regard for those they might pass it on to. Especially ridiculous in the middle of a pandemic. I agree that good attendance should be encouraged but I don't agree that this is the way to do that, and it is scheme's like this that encourage parents to be irresponsible and send there children in with norovirus, flu, chicken pox etc. Before the isolation period is over.

What about the child whose mother died of cancer after being very very ill for months - she died at 9am and the child didn't get into school until 11am -so child was late into school and therefore did not get 100% attendance award as missed the morning.

It’s so ridiculous, what they mean is don’t get ill, and none of us can promise that.

When I was at sixth form I remember one boy looking really pale and sweaty and quite obviously unwell, but he’d never had a day off school since his first day of primary so didn’t want to go home and break his “record” - I’m not sure passing a vomiting bug on to the other pupils is really something to be proud of tbh.

BastardMonkfish
“I wouldn't get too excited about this, the kids jumping the lunch queue and wearing their badges with pride are not going to be popular ”

You have made a really good point which begs the question - Why the hell did they think such a scheme would be a good idea?! 🤷🏻‍♀️ If anything it’ll be counterproductive, especially in the older year groups. They’ve actually just created another boundary to push against.

This shit used to happen at my school until one of my disabled students had a meeting with the head saying how unfair it was that he had to miss out on treats for 100% attendance because of the many hospital appointments he had no choice but to attend and which could not all be taken in the holidays. This policy was very quickly retracted after he started talking about disability discrimination! ( He was only ten- bloody little star!)

Yes it is very shitty! My DS will never have 100% attendance due to complex medical needs that means he is under several hosp depts which require lots of appointments- that have to be spread out so impossible to fit into holidays. Aside to these apps, he is actually rarely off school Ill.

I got pretty cross with school last year. The usual annual rewards week was having to be trimmed down due to Covid - and the way the school were doing it, was only allowing those with 98% and above attendance to even be in the running for a treat. So DS wasn't even allowed to be put forward. I particularly was unhappy, as due to his needs he struggles with school and has worked incredibly hard, so to then be told this couldn't be acknowledged was crap.
They didn't even lay on "fun stuff" at school. You either got taken out for a treat (theme park etc) or you were in class as normal

@Dontbeme

This nonsense annoys me beyond reason. When I was in primary school sixth class, all girls were shoved into a basketball team and played against each other in a school competition, this went on months. At the end of the year the team I was on won and medals presented in front of the entire school. Headmaster gets up, makes a speech and then states that even though one player had not played all her games by missing school, the school was still magnanimous enough to give her and the player that replaced her a medal each, so "Dontbe come on up and collect the medal you didn't really earn".

The reason I had missed school, my mother had died and the whole of my world upended, my heart broken as I was alone with her when she died, I was eleven when that happened and to this day my anger at what that prick did to me had never left. Fuck this 100% attendance as if it was some great achievement, stop kicking kids that don't fit your version of "ideal".

This is so sad and so very wrong.

I really believed covid would change the mindset of these bloody awards and people would stop encouraging kids to drag themselves into school when they were potentially ill or contagious. Instead I imagined a more supportive ethos where those with genuine attendance issues were identified by the school and then supported to come in more often by working to resolve whatever their individual barriers were.

Looks like I was wrong.

I’d say the majority of students will this is cycling ridiculous as well.