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?

Theres an argument that rewarding good health is discriminatory to pupils with disabilities inc long term health conditions. Which would be illegal obviously. Point that out to head and governors at the start of next term and let them chew on it awhile 😉

I was from a ‘unless you’re covered in blood, projectile vomiting or unconscious you’re off to school’ family 🤣 but we didn’t have these ‘awards’ and wouldn’t have cared even if they had.

It's such a ridiculous policy, especially when parents are following school guidelines about keeping children off for certain illnesses. Since the summer my daughter has been off with a sickness bug (can't return until 48 hours after the last 'incident'), a terrible uti, covid (have to be off for 3 days after a positive test) and, inexplicably, shingles (where she was told by the drs and the school that she couldn't return until after her spots had scabbed over). I didn't want her to be off, i work full-time, but didn't have a choice. It's just been a run of bad luck with her immune system, I have everything crossed that it improves next term.

I am very pleased our school doesn’t do this. They seem to be quite chilled out over missing the odd day for a holiday and children staying at home when they’re sick. There are some schools that seem so harsh over sickness policies etc. at the end of the day, little children should be in bed if they feel Ill not struggling at school with a fever and transmitting their germs to everyone.

Our policy is that no awards are made that inherently exclude children with SEND and those who have been bereaved. Which is what the 100% attendance awards do.

I'm not going to miss them or the phone calls from parents and carers who are quite rightly upset that their children are missing out yet again because of their 'foolishness' in having a parent die or having a different roll of the genetic dice.

Completely agree. It's encouraging the large number of teachers who agree how pointless they are and posters who say that their local schools don't issue them. Hopefully that will filter to my DC's school very soon.

But then you're penalising a child for their parent's decisions or their parent's job choice.

The child has no way f changing things themselves so, again, it remains pointless.

At least with most other awards the child has the greater input into them - effort, attainment, sports, academic, music, etc.

Attendance ones, at primary, are all about the parents and/or health issues.

Having some sort of award for good attendance seems to be an easy way for schools to tick a box that’s most likely needed for Ofsted. It’s awful to single out individual children though. Our kids primary school just put in the newsletter which class has best overall attendance and they get a non uniform day. They then have other things a class get a non uniform day for and distribute those to the other classes. I feel like that’s a much more reasonable approach and if it lets them tick the box and makes the staff’s life a bit easier I don’t feel like it’s a huge deal.
If it really annoys you things you can do include - writing to your MP to complain about how stupid the central policies on absence are and how little you feel they do to address the real causes; letting the school know you don’t approve of any policy that singles out individual children and that you think it’s discriminatory to kids with chronic health conditions; applying to be a governor and looking to influence school policy. I’ve done the first and I’ve also written to Ofsted detailing why I think our school’s approach is more reasonable than others in the area and suggesting it should be the recommended approach if a rewards system for attendance is felt to be a requirement.

Both my kids were on 'amber' attendance this term. That means their attendance was 'between 90 and 95%' and this is cause for concern and consideration as to how much they are being kept off school. I also got a few comments at parents evening.

In both cases they were kept off according to school policy. Temperature above 37 degrees and they have to stay home, do NOT dose them up with calpol to send them in because they'll just crash at about 11.00 when the calpol wears off. Both were back in school after a day once their temperatures went back below 37 degrees.

Vomiting-have to stay off school for 48 hours after the last vomiting episode. Again, I followed this to the letter. Not just two days after they last vomited, 48 hours. Sometimes, due to the way midnight and midday works, this warrants an extra day. I even offered to bring them in for the afternoon session once they were 'clear' but apparently this wasn't necessary.

I'm getting thoroughly fed up with following the school's own policies and then getting told off for following them!

Also I'm an ex teacher, I know all too well what it's like when a bug takes hold in schools and definitely don't want my kids to be patient zero. Hated attendance awards when I was teaching, hate them now I'm a parent!

I dunno, some parents do keep kids off at the drop of a hat!

Its never the working parents either, unless they have a nanny or au pair.

DS has a little friend who's mum will keep him off if he just says he feels bad. Poor au pair tells me he is then completely fucking fine all day including bombing happily round the park after collecting his little sister.

Parents should go on strike and refuse to send kids to school on masse until schools agree to abolish the draconian fixation on attendance.

Agree it sends out the wrong message

My 7 yo had a bad cough and was in tears at the thought of staying home and missing out on her attendance award

This is not teaching them to value their health and well being

YANBU - I got two letters. One with assessment results saying my 6 year old is working at “greater depth” in reading, maths and writing, and that they are a joy to teach. The other saying that he has been absent too much and children who don’t have 98% or higher attendance miss out on learning and do badly in school AND that in the workplace they would be fired. I mean, it’s sort of funny if it wasn’t so flipping rude.
Since I’ve had exactly the same amount of sickness as my child and am highly regarded in my job, it’s also inaccurate.

Since this all comes from Ofsted who follow the lead of Department for Education who flipping work for the public, I’d really like them to stop trolling parents who keep their children off school with covid, flu or some other contagious disease. We are working, we don’t rearrange our working days for fun. I honestly don’t know what they are thinking. We need to start making more of a fuss.

We need to strike. I mean it. They'll have to shove their attendance. We'll skew it purposefully.

The "prize" for 100% attendance at DD's primary many years ago was "afternoon tea" in the HT's office. DD would beg to be allowed 1 day off if she was close to being 100% as she really didn't want to sit in the HT's office eating sandwiches.

I remember once I walked into school and the office staff cheered me and said 'it's super mum!' I was really surprised thinking what had I done? . Turned out that for that year, both my dcs had 100% attendance. I was actually embarrassed because it was just luck that they hadn't been ill that year. I hadn't done anything to warrant a 'super mum' title. So silly.
Never happened again.

Congratulations on spreading your germs to vulnerable classmates and to classmates with vulnerable family members.

"Comgratulations on your mum not taking you out of school so she can visit her boyfriend!"

Its like punishing little kids for not doing g their homework or reading or for being late. Kids have little control over their attendance.

I was annoyed with this back in the 90s!

I started to make a fuss at the school. Others could see the point. The whole thing was cancelled thankfully.

My kid got one this term, I know he won't get 100% by the end of the year. Somethings bound to happen. Hopefully not but you can't help being ill. I was more happy with his certificate for his great attitude to learning.

Sounds like a silly idea, awarding a child for attendance like this.

Systems of this nature are always flawed, I’m afraid. The NHS has the Bradford score, which is a total waste of time. Everyone know the people who are taking advantage, and the same with schools….they know the pupils whose attendance is of concern, and those where it’s clearly just being unwell.

My ‘sickness score ‘ for this year is the highest it’s ever been. I was suffering from stress and burnout earlier in the year, after covering 3 other peoples’ jobs for an extended period, whilst trying to look after my poorly mum, and frail dad. Juggling my work, covering the other absent 3 people’s work, trying to look after parents, and coordinating care and hospital things, was just too must, and triggered an exacerbation of my C-PTSD symptoms. I had 3 weeks off. I was off again for 4days later in the year when my back gave out.

My boss hasn’t had any days off sick despite being off sick for several weeks…because she logged in and said she was WFH. That option isn’t open to me as was covering clinical, hands-on work. I understand it, but it seems unfair.

Children with health issues must feel similarly marginalised.

I completely disagree with it. I get it's an incentive to send kids to school but it's irresponsible to send kids to school poorly. So basically kids who's parents do the right thing are then punished.

I think that says more about our education system and our social care than our reward systems

That's a terrible backward attitude towards eating!!