To hate "perfect attendance" awards

[EllieRosesMammy]

Surely after going through a pandemic perfect attendance awards should be scrapped? I refuse to believe any child can go an entire year without being ill atleast once, so essentially schools are rewarding the ones who have been sent in to school to spread their germs around.

And then articles like this:
lm.facebook.com/l.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.hulldailymail.co.uk%2Fnews%2Feducation%2Fhull-boy-not-missed-day-7300887&h=AT15pbp4zAEVNauE8SDiHV7nuGzjlB9PVwvxfhka2nSCw-fUJHOIxI50ErMwsi96rnXaVdNlk-5HQsPc1agljITptxr5RX-ZjnYAfri6FdNPKn8NIxmThMtnLPlpKaQ1u7hR_L29GLjDoZuRVqbvtw

7 years and he hasn't been ill once? Give over 🙄

So we should penalise all the chronically ill, disabled, abused and neglected children because some children try to get out of attending school, and some parents are less than rigorous about getting their children to school?

Attendance awards are a lazy, discriminatory way of addressing the problem.

I think they are fair enough. No different from any other award. Its the onlh award some childrdn get. Why deny them it.

I’m speaking from nigh on 20 years worth experience working in primary schools and with children up to 13.

The vast majority of the time attendance is not something controlled by children until they are older (and even then it’s not always in their control).

They are directly discriminatory to sick and disabled children, not to mention those abused and neglected.

if they are the only awards a child could win then their school needs better leadership.

I agree, the vast majority - which leaves wiggle room for some kids who may be swayed by such awards

You mean they'll come in with Covid, pass it to a vulnerable child who is then off because they're too sick?

That tiny minority does not make it acceptable to discriminate against sick, disabled, abused and neglected children.

Any decent school leadership team worth their salt will find another non-discriminatory award to inspire that small number of children.

it’s sheer laziness that they don’t.

I'm not a fan of attendance awards; but doesn't sports day (or sports week as some primaries are doing now) discriminate just as much?

Tigerrag, no I am not talking about kids with covid, I am talking about kids who can't be bothered with school

I'm not a fan of attendance awards; but doesn't sports day (or sports week as some primaries are doing now) discriminate just as much?

No, because at least on sports day you can have all sorts of fun/silly events which give opportunities to the less sporty kids. There is nothing you can do to give an attendance award to someone who has been off school because of chronic illness or disability – unless maybe you discount all time off for that illness or disability.

My DCs are way beyond school age now, but I'd love to see someone challenge attendance awards via anti-discrimination laws.

@thing47

what a load of tosh.
I have never in all my years of being a parent seen any sort of silly game at sports days that the least sporty child in the class can win.
it just doesn’t happen.
by its very definition sports day is for the able and sporty kids.
don’t try and dress it up to be something inclusive because it isn’t

I have never seen a sports day where the least sporty child wins anything.

You might as well do away with all awards on the ground that not everyone has an equal chance of being awarded them.

Surely they all favour high achieving sporty NT children with no mental or physical health conditions?

I have never seen a sports day where the least sporty child wins anything

I have. I went to watch Dn in sports day last week. He was in a group that was obviously well picked for the abilities because dn managed to win and every race was close enough that nobody was left miles behind it’s not hard for an inclusive school to do that

There is a difference between talents where you can practise, have other strengths, reward effort etc and disability / acute illness where you can't do a thing about the absences.

what a load of tosh.
I have never in all my years of being a parent seen any sort of silly game at sports days that the least sporty child in the class can win.
it just doesn’t happen.
by its very definition sports day is for the able and sporty kids.
@blubberyboo
Err our Primary Sports Days are based on Houses competing against each other in time trial type events. No pressure on individual kids for example.
Whereas attendance Awards even class based put undue pressure on the child who is late or off becsuse of Medical Appointments or illness etc.

O and my ADHD child is very able and put up a good performance during Sports Day. However if he has a bad night and is more than 15 minutes late it impacts on class attendance. He could very easily be bullied for this.

No, because at least on sports day you can have all sorts of fun/silly events which give opportunities to the less sporty kids
Mmm... You can do just about anything; in practice this simply doesn't happen. Sports Day is a series of competitive events, best man (or woman) wins.

I've been to loads of sports days, prizes have always gone to the fastest/strongest/best

The use of attendance awards should earn an automatic black mark from Ofsted. It is so obvious that it potentially penalises disabled children for being disabled and is therefore unlawful.

It isn't excusable on the basis that it might be the only award some children get. It's not as if the school can do anything to direct the awards to those children, so it may well be that the sporty academically able child is also picking up the attendance prizes along with all the others they win. If the school wants to direct awards to children who struggle in academics and sports, it surely can't be beyond them to give awards for effort, kindness, helpfulness etc.

My DS used to get these, plus punctuality awards, in secondary school. They meant nothing to him, not least because he knew full well that the only reason he got them was that we hounded him out of bed and into the car and made sure he got there on time every day. Left to himself, it just wouldn't have happened.

The fact that you haven't seen it doesn't make it 'tosh', @blubberyboo, as it is quite clear some us HAVE seen it. And if you're going to be rude, at least be accurate – I didn't claim 'the least sporty kids could win', I said you could give 'less sporty kids opportunities'. You can do this by holding events that nobody 'wins'.

And as lots of pp have pointed out, you can give out awards for attitude, behaviour, helpfulness, kindness, improvement, effort and so on. It's not terribly difficult. Attendance awards are discriminatory. I bet you would struggle to find a parent of a chronically ill or disabled child who is in favour of them.

Then you’ve never been involved with a decent school leadership team.

Attendance awards directly discriminate against some children and there is no way to balance that out.

whereas there is with sports day and other awards.

It absolutely does happen.

In lots of schools with decent SLT’s. They make sure that it does.

same with other awards.

@thing47

creating sports day awards for the sake of creating them does nobody any favours. And events that “nobody wins” is a non competitive event. It just detracts from the sports achievements that are taking place. There will always be a child in every class that never has the “opportunity to win” just because they simply are not sporty and will always come last no matter what opportunities are placed in front of them.

if that’s the case it is very easy to create an attendance award that discounts periods of absence on the grounds of chronic illness and reward the kids who make effort. If you are going to make adjustments for sports day which is essentially what you have described, the same adjustments can be made for attendance awards. If you can’t create a sports day without having to create non competitive events like you have described to make it non discriminatory then sports day is just as discriminatory.

every child cannot win every award and there will always be awards that some kids will win that others won’t.
other kids get awards for personality, bravery, reaching an individual target, kindness and various other versions related to personality, resilience and capability.

attendance awards are really no different to many of these awards given out and it’s very sad that some parents just have to find a way to take something away from a child just because their child might not win it.

But why do non sporty kids need to be given nonsense awards? Why can't the sporty kids just win them, as long as the non sporty kids don't feel bad about themselves? Same with attendance awards. Otherwise just get rid of all awards.

Agree.