It's that time again, congratulations on your immune system

[takeitonthegin]

It boils my blood every end of school term. 100% attendance awards. Congratulations on not being poorly, congratulations on being sent to school with a stinking cold!

AIBU to be so grumpy about this? Anyone else feeling annoyed?

A school I used to work for was recently criticised by OFSTED for its poor attendance ( not long after COVID) It was a school with an ARP with quite a few pupils who were clinically vulnerable and needed lots of hospital visits... one of the pupils I used to work with was deaf and had cerebral palsy and autism. He had absolutely no control over when his many hospital appointments were ( despite attendance officers telling his parents these should be made in the school holidays or before after school... specialist hospitals which were an hour and a half away from where they lived.) He used to get really upset at not getting the attendance awards and treats. Poor kid- So unfair

Ours get attendance certificates but they’re not celebrated in the same way effort ones are. If a child wins an effort certificate the parents get to go in to the awards assembly. But the attendance ones are just given out as a sign they’ve noticed.
My youngest had 100% and got a certificate but I didn’t even realise til she came home with the certificate. Eldest didn’t get one as attachment disorder has shown it’s ugly head and she’s really struggled this year. I didn’t make a thing of it, I said well done to youngest and then congratulated them both for getting through the term.

I think lots of certificates at primary school in particular are demotivating. Achievemnt awards in particular - if you look at children in two of my children's classes, all the way through primary all the certificates across practically all classes went to children who were born in the early part of the academic year. I read up more about this and not surprisingly this is due to the maturity etc - also the chances are they are physically more developed so will be better at sport early on in their school career. As time passes the gap evens out.
My point is that all the certificates are flawed and absences are the same. Perhaps effort is an exception but even that is subjective (the school introduced progress awards so again the recipient would be distance traveled - again random as it was sept to sept)

The who system is flawed and absence certificates are no worse - in some way at lease it is clear cut

We have a newsletter and it has this but there is a note on it saying they realise why it is low atm

My DD has Long Covid and her attendance is a bit low. She has been poorly this week with a sickness bug plus high temp, sore throat, cough etc. School phoned to find out how she was and when I said she'd not been sick that day told me to send her in the next day if she wasn't sick again completely against the 48 hour policy. So risking other children becoming unwell for the sake of attendance figures!

Decades ago I was called into school to discuss with the head teacher how to improve my child's attendance, a trainee social worker was visiting and sitting in the office.

He picked on the wrong mother!
I was furious. Properly upset with his incompetence. I'd submitted sick notes and phoned constantly to keep them updated. My daughter had been really poorly. She had a short uretas (tubes connecting the bladder to the kidneys). As a result she got nasty kidney infections as a small child. This was year 1 so she was small.

We had a few days of her not feeling at all well, then she'd been started on antibiotics that hadn't worked. We went back to the GP after a week and they sent of a sample off. She was resistant to the antibiotics first given. The second lot were started promptly but the original Infection was really nasty by this time. So all in all she was off school for nearly three weeks. Yes it was a long time. But absolutely nothing I could have done differently.

That headteacher reprimanded me and tried to make me feel bad. He'd not grasped the medical side at all, he wasn't listening to me at all. Was more concerned with showing the trainee social worker who was in charge.

I told him in no uncertain terms how wrong he was. How the time line had unfolded and how the absence could not be avoided.

His parting shot as I left the room was 'let's try a bit harder with attendance shall we'!!!

Well that riled me more. I responded no, I shall not be trying any harder. A very sick child signed off for medical reasons should always be given the opportunity to get well. Health overrides education. Always.

He was open mouthed and didn't respond. Twat of a teacher who thankfully resigned.

No they don’t. They’re told to do it.

And yet many don't.

My school doesn't do them, hasn't done for many years.
DD's schools never did them.
Nephew's school doesn't do them.
The schools my nieces have been to don't do them.

The awards/certificates are very much a choice.

100% with you @takeitonthegin It's right up there with the 'treats' and preferential treatment for badly behaved children who have the decency to behave for a whole fucking week, when the children who are good all the get shag-all, and the 'gifted and talented' program. All bullshit and bollocks and hugely divisive!

YANBU, I was hoping in the aftermath of covid schools would think twice about attendance awards.

DS2 got a certificate today, DS1 did not. Poor DS1 couldn't help having a tummy bug and DS2 is lucky he didn't get it! It's all about luck, or having parents that send you in poorly.

The award/certificates will be dependent on council policy. It won’t be down to individual schools. You’re still missing the bigger issue though.

YANBU; it's totally unfair on those who have a greater tendency to catch anything and I can't believe that, as far as I can tell, schools make no exemption for kids with chronic conditions like asthma. I've heard of parents being accused of keeping their kids home to much when they are having breathing problems. The kids know this is BS as well.

My kids and their friends call them the ‘uncaring parent award’, most that get them admit their parents give them no sympathy when they’re ill and tell them to get on with it. Not something that’s sought after at all.

It does seem a bit much when schools give out kindles, iPads and bikes (all things done by schools I know) but my kids would rather have the time off when they’re sick.

I guess it's fine to stop attendance awards (the one award my DD could get in primary) provided you also stop awarding/celebrating the sports teams, the musicians, getting pen licences etc none of which my DD could get due to motor skills issues. But she turned up and tried every day.

I think schools should celebrate 95% attendance as a goal, adjusted for kids with ongoing medical issues and then improved attendance for anyone else, so one bad term makes it easier to get an improvement next term.

It’s bullshit, I have a child with chest problems and every cold they get they end up on children’s ward. If people didn’t send kids to school who are under the weather in order to get 100% attendance then mine wouldn’t have to miss so much school 🙈

DD at age 3 and 4 was regularly hospitalised with breathing issues. One memorable playgroup parent made a “well, you really will need to sort that before she starts school, educational attendance is so important!”. Yes, I agree, but probably not quite so important as taking in adequate OXYGEN! Silly woman (and a teacher, sadly).

Since then DD has very little illness and routinely has close on 100% attendance. But it’s luck. It’s not a skill or brave or effort or whatever. Fortunately her school doesn’t do attendance certificates!

I'm at an LEA school and the LEA has no policy on what certificates we issue or not.

Academies don;t generally follow LEA policies. They set their own.

The bigger picture I assume you mean is low attendance overall.

Whilst this can be an issue in some areas and some groups (though this isn't broken down very well in official statistics and usually doesn't take into account send, medical backgrounds, etc to balance it out) I firmly believe that rewarding 100% is entirely pointless and makes no difference whatsoever on overall attendance. Certainly at my school, the dropping of these awards several years ago, did not lead to a fall in attendance figures.

Tbh the letters warning parents about attendance don't do a whole lot to help either. Most poor attendance is due to much more complex issues which a letter or email is simply not going to change.

The whole attendance bigger picture needs proper resourcing and funding to support those families who cannot attend school every day for a wide range of reasons.

And I am adamant that in primary school attendance has little to do with the child itself, it is down to parents and/or health issues.

Yes, that’s exactly what I said. It’s a plaster over a broken leg. It’s pointless.

Her effort should be rewarded. To be honest, I think schools should focus more on rewarding kids who try hard, whatever that means for each child and it will mean different things for each child.

Yep! My son had 97% until he was off this week with COVID, so... what was I meant to do?

There have been at least 3 occasions this year when my year R DD has been sent home with "diarrhea" and told she needs to stay off for 48 hours. For every single instance, it was the one and only loose bowel movement in that 48 hour period, it occurred approximately 2 hours after lunch, and she had no other symptoms whatsoever at any point. Quite clearly, there's something on the school lunch menu that doesn't agree with her - but rather than apply common sense and look at the bigger picture, they keep sending her home for two days and then complain about her low attendance!

Have you ever tried teaching an unwell child? I’d rather spend time catching that child up rather than trying to teach them while they’re unwell. No one wants to keep their child at home ill, parents do it because that’s what our children need on that particular day; just like the days that we don’t make it into work. Attendance awards should be scrapped.

@Pumperthepumper my response was to your post.

It's an ableist and outdated reward system that only benefits able bodied children who are sent to school unwell/who by chance don't get ill that term

Yes I have. I’m not sure why you’ve addressed this to me though. Attendance awards are completely pointless, and children should not be in school when they’re ill.