To be bloody pissed off that school are annoyed that my son can't breathe?

[Mrsweasleysclock]

DS suffers from asthma. It has been a struggle to get it under control and this time of year always comes with a flare up. He has been breathless and coughing with chest tightness for a week now, hasn't been in school in this time. We've had to take him to the hospital twice, once by ambulance as he couldn't catch his breath for an hour so called 999. I have kept in touch with the school everyday giving them updates.

This morning I get a letter about his poor attendance and threatening further action if his attendance doesn't improve.

I am fuming. I understand they have attendance standards to keep but surely if you were concerned you could have had a chat with me any time when I was in dropping/collecting DD. Or even act like you care about his health rather than making it seem like I just haven't bloody bothered to bring him to school.

So mumsnet, talk me down because I feel like going to war over this with the school.

Yabu: the school have procedures to follow

Yanbu: they could have discussed his health/attendance informally first before going down the formal route of sending a letter threatening action.

@HereBeFuckerychildren have more days not in school than in school, (195 days per year are school days) and could attend non-urgent appointments then.

I think you should have had better attendance in maths class.
365-195=170 days not in school.
170<195
Now of course we should probably remove weekends from that figure too as seeing a doctor or dentist on a Sunday is likely to rarer than hens teeth.
170-(52*2)=170-104=66
Maybe take bank holidays off too? Seeing a doctor on Xmas day isn't likely is it?
So there really is only approximately 60 days of the year you could 'plan' to see a doctor. That's before considering that you usually don't get a choice - you fit into the doctors availability & frankly seeing as your not exactly seeing a Dr for fun and games, particularly for a child, it would be best to see them as soon as you are offered.

A lot of responses have jumped through a lot of hoops to justify it being automatic, or its the process they have to follow or they don't get the choice in sending them out. Just following orders? It's a bit Nuremberg defence isn't it? A good school should know it's pupils and should be able to filter and identify the skivers vs the children who catch everything going & are hit hard by it vs those that need signposted to external services for additional support (eg the young carer who's parent is going through a spell of bad days and is often unable to be left & would benefit from other agencies stepping in). The automatic, thoughtless catchall letter is of limited benefit and is more likely to damage relations between parents and school in the case of genuinely ill children due to its accusatory nature.

As for the PP who has to send 400 letters out at this time of year for their school of 1600 - has it not been considered that the calculation methodology is inappropriate? Rather than raw percentages should you not be considering the person who missed 5 Mondays because they had a headache/something nondescript as a greater problem than the person who was off with covid/flu/chickenpox for 5 consecutive days? A bit like applying the Bradford factor in measuring employee absence?
Or maybe extrapolate the dataset to what is a likely attendance for the remainder of the year?
Heck if someone is absent the first day(s) of school they start with 0% attendance - though that would probably break their database as they'll end up dividing by 0 somewhere.

If schools are getting worked up about it because it can trigger Ofsted inspections and other sanctions further up the line then that is simply indicative of a failed system and processes from the top.
Failure should be called out not swept under the carpet.

@user1471447863

Good thing I'm not a maths teacher. But sure, 60 possible days in the year on which you can do any planned medical or dental appointments isn't enough. You won't mind when your child's teacher leaves at 2.15 on Thursday, to go to the dentist? Great. I've got a routine blood test that needs to be booked - instead of waiting til half term, I'll just skip teaching Y8 on a Tuesday after break. Super!

As for "A good school should know it's pupils and should be able to filter and identify the skivers vs the children who catch everything going" - the person sending the letters, the Attendance Officer, is not usually a teacher. Otherwise, y'know, they wouldn't really have time to teach. It's an administrative job, and usually that person has no classroom time - how would you like them to 'know their pupils'? Please don't suggest that teachers create some kind of 'slivers' register. It would be massively unethical.

@HereBeFuckery It's a supply issue as much as a demand issue. ALL the kids in ALL the schools trying to get ALL their appointments in 60 days pa. And ALL the teachers. Extra dentists/opticians/GPs etc are not seasonally drafted in. Not to mention all the HCPs who have to take school holidays off. There is already a locum shortage.

@HereBeFuckery - you seem to be suggesting that because teachers the professional providers in this scenario, cannot do things, pupils shouldn't. That really doesn't make sense at all. Teacher absence means 30 odd people don't get their education. A child's absence means they might miss something, which more often than not they can catch up on, or is covered again.

Anyway I've spent ages deconstructing your straw man. The point is the parents of sick children shouldn't be hassled about absence when their kids are in hospital.

The education system (nb not teachers who are on the whole amazing) is so stretched and disoriented that it values presence, conformity and cost-saving over what is best for young people and is failing children in their thousands, and needs urgent reinvestment and disconnection from the political sphere.

It will be a standard letter, I’m sure they are fine about it really. We had the same, tutor told me to ignore

@IsItThough that's a very fair point! It's always a bit of a lottery trying to get a dentist appt and GP appointments are more tricky during the short holidays!

Of course a teacher taking term time day time appointments would be deeply unprofessional, I would never do that (barring emergencies). What I struggle to understand is why parents don't seem to try to keep regular appointments to outside school time. I can't remember the last time (this term, since Sept) I had a whole day without at least one child from any of the year groups I teach having an appointment. They never seem to manage catch up on work and it then makes the sequences of lessons much less effective. Grrr!

If there was a more individualised way to only chase parents who do not value having their child actually attend school, that would be amazing. Sadly, especially as schools get bigger and bigger, I can't envisage how that would work. I hate to hear that a parent of a chronically or seriously ill child being made to feel crappy. That's not right.

Absolutely. Most people who have a child with a long term condition will know only too well how long you have to wait for appointments and how much pressure services are under as it is. "Get your appointments in school holidays" is all very well in theory, but how on earth could paediatric and related services where the vast majority of the patients are school aged children function if everyone had to be seen in school holidays? It's completely unworkable.
Wouldn't be feasible for a lot of parents either. Might be do-able if all you have to fit in is a couple of dental appointments and an eye test for instance, especially if one of the parents in a SAHP, but if your child has significant health issues there can be a lot of appointments. At one point I had 3 school aged children, 2 of whom were under 5 different consultants between them, in 3 hospitals including one over 100 miles away. The multiple clinic appointments, admissions for procedures, GP visits plus the usual visits to the dentist etc that everyone has might not have filled 60 days but there were a lot more than would fit into the 10 days off during school holidays that we were allowed in our department. And shoot me for being unreasonable, but we did quite fancy using the holidays for a holiday from time to time.
In my experience, parents of children with health issues do not take any more time off school than they have to - they're generally only too well aware of how much time their children miss when they are ill, never mind appointments - but it's largely unavoidable. We had the letters from time to time but I was never particularly bothered about them. I know the schools are under pressure and my sons' actual teachers were never anything other than supportive and understanding. If any of them had ever suggested I should just get appointments in holidays they'd have got short shrift but fortunately they all had more sense.

We were told we needed to do appointments out of school time. Impossible. I've had consultants who only work certain days unless I want a 40 mile round trip to another hospital.

And depending on the department it's not always easy getting an appointment in the first place without a long wait.

If we want a GP appointment, we have to ring at 8.30 am (worst possible time as usually in transit to school or work) then we're offered a call-back at 'some point' during the day when we will be old if we can come in for a face to face appointment which is often offered at short notice. We've had a few full sick days just to accommodate this system.

'Told', not 'old' lol

Iv had a child who received a very bad school report, they are gutted. No mention though that they have been off for 6 months with severe injury. Gutted for them and threw it in the bin

ta

they bloody don't though

I know. 💐

Needs challenging, as do those people who glibly expect families of disabled children to suck this sort of treatment up, and tut at our unreasonableness when we don't accept our lot is to be uncomplaining collateral damage in their dysfunctional administrative systems.

Nah - we expect you to treat us lawfully.

Absolutely ridiculous of the school. This whole attendance thing is bonkers.