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.

It may well be automated, but parents that are genuinely ill should not be bothered by snotty letters about attendance at this time, especially in OP's case where her child was so poorly he ended up going to hospital via ambulance. Attendance needs to be monitored but the system needs changing.

Ah unforunately it's most probably nothing to do with being "lazy and thoughtless". It will simply be down to lack of time and resources to dedicate to doing it as it should be done. How wonderful it would be if the people in charge of attendance in schools could sit down and go thorough every case of a low percentage attendance. They would love to allocate the proper time to that if they had it, for the receptionist to sit down with the SLT attendance lead and discuss individual cases. But as much as they'd like to be able to do that, school staff just fly through the day, doing things ultra fast, and while they may be able to quickly take out the pupils they know who have longterm illness or health conditions, they won't always catch everyone before the letter is sent out.

Which is a terrible, thoughtless process.

Is there any evidence that confrontational letters sent indiscriminately have an impact on attendance?

Small schools tend to be the most understaffed due to less funding. Managing attendance is hard work so it will likely just be a template letter you received.

If I was you, I would email the head, asking if there's anything beyond what you're already doing that she'd like. She'll likely apologise and say it's a template.

YANBU though, I can imagine it feels pretty crap to receive that when you're already anxious and worrying. I hope your son recovers soon.

I’m mid 30s now but remember my Mum having the same problem

For everyone saying there is no time to look at factors behind attendance in schools, I can't believe that to be true! So rather than look at individual cases and offer support where needed and strategies to get the kids back in school, better to send out a one-size fits none letter. It is box ticking and nothing more. I work in HE where attendance is not mandatory, but I can assure you we monitor every single student and reach out when we don't see them. We have a lot of students!

I hate this system that forces the hand of schools to behave like this. It unnecessarily engenders an adversarial relationship between the school and the parents who actually care deeply about both the health and education of their children and resent the accusation that they are failing their kids.

Who is winning with this - in the history of all these crappy letters has even one of the shitty parents -who they supposedly address - actually changed their behaviour and attendance of their children as a result of it?

Schools just can’t win can they. As someone who works in a school we have to monitor why a child isn’t it. Safeguarding and all that. Yes generally a head teacher gets to see letters of attendance concerns and pull out the historic children of long term health issues. However occasionally they get missed.
we have a job to do, parent have a role to play. Let’s not get too aggy about this. If it’s a mistake, school will generally acknowledge that.

Is there any evidence that confrontational letters sent indiscriminately have an impact on attendance?

Well in my own school, then, yes, in some cases where a parent tends to keep the child off at the drop of a hat, the letters seem to have resulted in an improvement to that child's attendance. Local authorities can and will, quite rightly, fine if there is no good reason for persistent absence. Schools will let them know the people in this category, and those parents know that without medical evidence they are are risk of a fine, so in some families, yes, the letters do have an effect. I mean, if your child has a genuine illness or medical condition there is usually some evidence for this, and if you are engaging in dialogue with the school regularly about it, there is nothing to worry about.

Wow, really - your head has time to sit and do that?

Thank you for all the well wishes. I feel so sad for him. He asks me all the time "why do I have to have asthma, mummy?" It honestly breaks my heart. He's such a sweet boy, and he really likes school.

I’ve been in exactly the same position so I feel for you. I have a feeling these letters may get sent out automatically. What I did was phone the office (who were very understanding) and they simply asked me to bring in something from the GP confirming DD’s asthma flare ups. GP printed off two pages that showed all our trips to out of hours, A&E etc. No more questions asked.

Her class then made her a very sweet get well soon card.

I hope your DS improves very soon. It’s so hard.

Yes of course with our monthly attendance meetings or the school admin looks who k ow the children very well.

💐

But you realise that some children with asthma do improve as they get older? I hope my child's improved attendance hasn't been chalked up to shitty letters rather than the improvement that was achieved in line with increasingly stable lungs.

YANBU. I have also been in your position and it stinks. I manage people and If I sent these sort of letters I would have been in front of HR and given a massive warning. Some people - children and adults- are just more poorly than others. Healthy people get awarded at school. Just cannot get over that. Surely their award is their health!!

Thank Fred and Rose West! Safeguarding and being thorough in keeping tabs on exactly where a child is it off school was a legislation put in because of poor Heather West

I suspect the school are under pressure to produce evidence to the LEA and possibly layers above them to show that they are "doing something". I used to work in a different part of the public sector and we had to do quite a lot of stuff that we felt was completely pointless because there were government targets to meet, and always someone auditing us. In my experience, monitoring tends to involve measuring things that are easy to measure, not things that are actually important. And its much easier to measure wnat percentage of parents of pupils with low attendance have had letters than it is to look at why attendance is low and what support pupils with long term medical conditions are getting.
I don't know for sure as it's not my field, but I'd hazard a guess that there's a target in there somewhere and that the people who are sending the letters often think they are as stupid as those who are receiving them. It's still annoying, but it may not be the school's fault.
And of course human beings sometimes just make mistakes. I once got a letter about DS's alleged unauthorised absence which I queried. The dates were days when he had been unwell at school (he has a long term condition) and I'd been asked to collect him, but somehow the info hadn't got into the school database and he was down as having not registered for the afternoons with no explanation It was a mistake, but it wasn't personal and a conversation soon resolved the matter.

That would have fixed them. A strongly worded letter from the attendance officer

DS was in hospital for 15 months I would have gone ballistic if I had received a letter telling me his attendance was poor!
YANBU!!

Yes, and they also improve as the seasons change too. AND we are aware that doctors don't often diagnose asthma until they've reached a certain age etc etc. So no, none of those fluctuations or improvements are anything to do with attendance letters obviously. There really is no need at all for anyone to get ultra defensive about it. None of it will be aimed at YOU. But they can't discriminate and only send letter out to those families they THINK may be having cheeky Friday afternoons off, or with Monday morning hangovers, can they? Hence the blanket letters. File in the bin if you are confident enough you're keeping up your end of the bargain.....

Yeah these letters drive me mad. Having had an almost unblemished attendance record at primary school in the first term of secondary my DD had three separate vomiting bugs. Twice she became ill at school and they sent her home saying not to come back until 48 hours after last bout.

We were then sent a similar letter asking us to" work with the school to improve attendance..." I asked them if they had changed their policy on vomiting and should I send her in with a bucket in future? 🙄

I know they are a standard letter but is it not possible for an attendance officer to have a few grains of common sense.

Ask THEM for advice on what you can do

Oh bollocks @CurlyhairedAssassin . If a medical professional is telling you your child is not OK to be in school do you really think anyone at the school is qualified to countermand that? On what basis?

Ah finally! A parent who gets it. If only all parents could be as reasonable.

Just work with the school! They are all working in the best interests of ALL the children as a very varied group. If you are being supportive of attendance policies, conversing with the school regularly, not letting your child stay off when they just can't be arsed to go in that day, then crack on, you're doing a grand job. Once you've read the letter, call school to calmly discuss with attendance lead (not on the bounce), yo'uve then done your bit and you can file the letter in the bin.

I think you slightly misunderstood. I meant, ask the school what you should do in the case of a child being medically advised to stay at home if he is eg chesty and on steroids, for example, but their attendance is poor and they're receiving letters. Put it on the school to offer a solution to your difficult sitution whereby a medical practitioner's advice means that attendance levels will continue to be affected. There is no reasonable answer, and schools know this, but have to record that they've had that discussion.