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.

More than likely the person who prints and sends won't know who this child is or their medical circumstances.

@Lulu1919
I agree, they wouldn’t know.

Why are the school annoyed that your son can’t breathe OP?

So someone, who does know, should check them, or the whole whatever it is they think they are doing is rendered redundant.

But back to my first point which is that according to DfE guidelines they shouldn't be threatening not to authorise future absences caused by illness on the basis of percentages.

O God I got one of these dreadful letters. My children were being kept off school for safeguarding resons. The school know all about it! They know there was a much bigger picture than them simply missing time off school.
I was going through court regarding the children seeing their father. If I had taken them to school he would have taken then and there was a massive risk he wouldn't return them! I was already very very stressed and the letter made it even worse.
The letter made me feel like I was doing something detrimental to my children. The school should have been supporting me not piling on the stress.

I think at the very least there should be two templates of the the letter. One for unauthorised absences that maybe comes across a little more stern and one for authorised absences that has more compassion.

Totally agree!

Go to war with them - I bloody would. If they are so incapable of communicating directly with parents who are obviously dealing with some very difficult and worrying health issues and choose instead to hide behind the ‘it’s an automatically generated letter’ then they need to look long and hard at their procedures.

FFS!!

Schools literally can’t do anything right can they.

I bet the ones saying go to war are the first to moan if teachers go on strike or there is a lockdown.

A child has been absent from school (for whatever reason) these are absences whether they are authorised or not.

The school has a duty of care to check up on these absences and these letters are often sent automatically, as requested by the local authority.

This is standard procedure.
If you have an issue with it then homeschool.

Looks like parents can't do any right either.

People like you are the reason that hard working caring teachers are leaving the profession in droves. It is not their choice that the letters are sent
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As a teacher can I just say bollocks to the above . Schools which send out stock attendance letters to children with serious medical conditions should consider whether they are guilty of discriminating against people with disabilities.
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Gosh- that would be so scary.

The 'threatening further action' is what would annoy me. I think this is the bit that I would highlight.

Can we please ban the "teachers are leaving in their droves" sentence from Mumsnet?

This doesn't matter. They have to notify parents when their child's attendance hits a certain level. As he isn't better yet you won't have had the chance to show any medical evidence yet either (another thing they have to ask for). In our school an attendance officer comes in once every few weeks and does these letters and no she doesn't read why the children are off, she looks at their attendance data and that's it.

As a teacher, you must be able to think of another way to write "teachers are leaving in their droves"

Basic literacy skills?

@CarefreeMe are you a teacher?

Even if it is 'standard procedure' do you really think its the most effective way to write a letter based on a co-operative model between parents and teachers?

You also know 'standard procedures' aren't always right and sometimes should be changed?

How incompetent. If they’re not capable of sending a tailored letter they shouldn’t bother sending any. What if the child had cancer, or any other of a number of illnesses including asthma. They shouldn’t be making parents feel worse by sending a letter like that. They need to improve their procedures.

Secondary school or primary? I am an attendance officer in a secondary school. By this point in the term I am expected to have sent letters/emails home to all students with less than 95% attendance. Your DS is a special case and I have a spreadsheet that notes all parents that I have regular contact with and reasons and the like but with 1600 students and usually about 400 letters to send by this point, some slip through.

Over my time at the school I’ve worked hard to get the the initial letters tone changed slightly (it’s early on in the year, we realise any illness at this point with have a big impact on percentages and everyday they’re in school it’s improving ect.) but this was not without major pushback from SLT. Please don’t take it personally as ridiculous as it sounds, just make sure you send evidence and keep in contact with updates, that’s all school want. I would perhaps call in and just ask to check how they have coded the week, as long as you have sent it evidence it should be coded I, which is an authorised illness.

I completely sympathise with the OP. As a form tutor previously, these sort of letters really annoyed me because I ended up dealing with the inevitable fall-out from parents like the OP who keep the school updated and have genuine reasons.

As others have said, it is an automatic thing. My new line manager was emailed about this today and now has to phone 8 sets of parents about "poor" attendance. Except in many cases, it isn't poor. One day's sickness in this half term means their attendance is in danger of dipping below the magic 97%. Anyone can be ill on one day. However, our non-teaching attendance officer doesn't care about this. She is only interested in the data. As a form tutor, I was more interested in the patterns of sickness: a week off because they had eg chicken pox is much easier to deal with than regular Mondays or half a day here and there. Attendance person was less keen to provide this and although I could look it up, it took time.

OP keep doing what you are doing. Parents like you are normally a pleasure to work with and the vast majority of teachers would be happy to do this.

are you a teacher?

Even if it is 'standard procedure' do you really think its the most effective way to write a letter based on a co-operative model between parents and teachers?

You also know 'standard procedures' aren't always right and sometimes should be changed?

@Pigsears I used to be.

I can tell you aren’t, as you would know this has nothing to do with teachers and the procedure is way out of their hands, as well as those who are printing and sending the letter.

I never had anything to do with absences apart from doing the register.

Attendance is dealt with by those whose job it is to deal with the attendance and they get their rules from the head and local authority.

If someone has an issue with the school then they can change schools but considering they’re probably all in the same local authority then it would probably all be the same procedure.

Therefore, your best bet is to homeschool or get a job at the school and try and change these procedures if you think it’s so easy to do so.

How odd. Ds2 has been in hospital for the last 3 weeks and was off school the week before that and I don't think we've had a letter (tbf I've mostly been at the hospital so not checking the post v closely but dh would probably have mentioned it).

I have to say I wouldn't give a monkeys right now. Bigger fish to fry. The attendance officer can go argue w his consultant if they think he should be in school.

I know someone who was sent a letter about their sons attendance saying it was too low, and their son was not likely to do well in his future school career if this continued- including GCSEs.

Her child was 8.

He was dying of cancer. The letter arrived 4 days before he died. The school were aware of the situation.

However, our non-teaching attendance officer doesn't care about this. She is only interested in the data.

OP, I hope if you do ‘go to war’ that you go to the right person, not unleash your anger on the person doing the admin and then be sheepish afterwards.

with 1600 students and usually about 400 letters to send by this point, some slip through.

Please don’t take it personally as ridiculous as it sounds, just make sure you send evidence and keep in contact with updates, that’s all school want.

That’s what I think too, it’s just a formality, deal with it and forget it.

In the past we would have had someone between the letter sending and the medical condition stage. So it would have been caught and not sent. At my school a load of the support staff got made redundant so that person isn't there any more. Stupid things like this keep happening and the teachers get the shit for it

@CarefreeMe is right in that it's nothing to do with teachers

its to do with blunt success measures for schools

and ergo even less to do with actual young people and their wellbeing

I wouldn't go to war, but it would be totally reasonable to suggest a change in policy or at least a few letter options. I (teacher) often have to talk to my tutees about absence, and it's often just that they have been ill for a bit so it's a pretty pointless conversation.