How the fuck do you improve attendance

[Merryoldgoat]

I’ve had the delightful LA attendance officer letting me know my son’s attendance is 85%.

I KNOW. I’m the one looking after him.

How am I supposed to stop him getting ill? I’d love to know.

I’m just sick of it. We’re juggling two autistic children, a full time job and I get this officious letter implying I’m keeping him off under false pretences.

It’s such a stupid blunt instrument.

I’m angry and tired and just sick of it.

I have no AIBU. It’s just the rant of an exhausted parent. DH is also exhausted in case anyone is wondering.

@cornflakegeneration
I totally get that. I sympathise hugely with children who have horrible sicknesses or longer term conditions.
My point is that there are lots and lots of kids who don't care, who have parents who don't care and who essentially truant while pretending to be sick.
That's not saying 'sick kids should be in school'. Absolutely, they should be at home, recovering. The ones who have low absence because they take term time holidays (repeatedly), stay off if they have a sniffle and simply truant without even pretending illness are the ones who need targeted interventions. The ones where absence is due to a safeguarding or CP issue, we cannot let them fly under the radar - it's not fair.
How do we write nuanced letters that say 'we know they weren't really sick, they posted on SM showing themselves having a day off and other kids told us'? Or parents where we suspect the kid is off to cover signs of abuse at home? We would open ourselves up to a world of abuse! So, schools fall back on a standard letter. I'm sorry for the upset it causes families who are genuinely doing their best.

Oh my god. The usual 'ask for help and support' bullshit. There is NO help at all that will get a child to school available or in existence. What exactly is this magic wand you think exists? Saying 'get help' is just the MN euphemism for 'clearly you can't parent'.

@HereBeFuckery

I have no issue with the school. It’s the LA who have sent the letter.

The school have no reason to doubt his illness and his absences match the pattern of when there were various bugs keeping staff and children off in huge numbers.

I don’t understand why the LA can’t talk to the school and ask ‘which kids do we need to worry about here?’

I’d suggest that it’s not me given every absence is notified personally, I’m in contact regularly about my sons, a well child attends if one is ill, I engage with suggested courses, I support the school with discipline and behaviour management and both have EHCPs which obviously need significant parental input.

Coupled with having a full time job which I have to constantly request flexibility with owing to childcare issues when they’re ill the added stress of an unnecessary threatening letter is just more than I feel able to cope with right now.

And then to have posters claiming I’m lying about diagnoses, my child’s sickness, that I keep them off for ‘sniffles’ etc.

It’s too fucking much.

Absolutely- completely agree that these parents need a rocket up the arse. Do letters work though? Do the types of parents who do these things really respond to letters? Is there a better way? I don't know I'm just thinking out loud.

It also doesn't explain schools where the children are either visibly ill (sent home) or can provide concrete medical evidence, yet are still being hounded about attendance.

@Merryoldgoat
The LA can't just not send the letter to some parents because they know you are doing your best (which you clearly are). They would be accused of treating parents unfairly and it would almost certainly get them into legal hot water.
You are clearly not one of the parents who keep your child off school for nothing - try your best not to take it personally being lumped in with the parents who actually need the letters!

The most important thing is the welfare of your child (and you). If his school work is suffering try to help him to catch up with extra tutoring or if possible if he’s not too ill to do work at home get some homework from the teachers. Must of all don’t worry about box tickers! Your child comes way before that. He can always catch up school work but his health needs to be nurtured,

What are the consequences of receiving the letter. (Sorry jumped to end off post.)

Interesting reading all this. People seem very ‘passionate’ about the topics.

I was chuckling, not in a mean way, about being off for periods. I have never had any ‘side’ issues but my two girls do so fully sympathise. They also massively crave for chocolate, there’s like a devil takes over them. It’s the only time i will give in and go the shop for some. If they got picked up for absence over this I am sure somebody somewhere would twist this as ‘they get to stay off and eat chocolate!’

Sadly schools aren’t always innocent on absence/lates protocol. I know some are very supportive but I mentioned earlier that school are aware of the medical reason that my daughter is late yet she continues to get late detentions and demerits for it. I have flagged it up again but nothing.

First thing: Don't stress. Honestly. The LA have a legal obligation to make contact when attendance is at 85%. You may get a visit from Social Services. It's annoying but they are just doing their job. They need to check you are not keeping your child off to clean the house or be your full-time carer. If the school know your child is disabled and getting sick easily, I really wouldn't worry. ASD often leads to school refusal so they also need to check you're getting the support you need.

On the Dr note thing... You don't get sick notes (Fitness to Work) for kids. If you need a letter you'll have to pay for it. And they shouldn't be asking for anything under a week or so anyway.

I'd recommend Bassett's Multivits for giving everything a bit of a boost. They are apparently "not totally disgusting" and do seem to help with bugs. Also encourage hand sanitizer as it will help beat the bugs. I think quite a number of people have been ill since October as we all start mixing again.

@Misslings

Does no one have any common sense anymore?

Reading posts like yours, I honestly wonder

I appreciate there are some families who need support but do these automatically generated letters identify those families? It’s meant to be punitive not supportive and for many families, they are need of support.

On the contrary. Failing to recognise this policy is more like to impact adversely upon disabled children and children and therefore with long term health conditions may result in unlawful discrimination. So School may absolutely need to treat this family differently in order to treat them fairly and legally.

You hopefully wouldn't ask a black person not to take racism personally - so similar considerations potentially apply here in respect of disability discrimination. Being 'lumped in' is not something families should have to put up with for the administrative convenience of schools.

Always surprised at how poorly understood equality legislation is in the context of schools.

The LA should not be imposing a blanket policy of demanding medical evidence for all further absences. The DfE has clarified that in their guidelines - if there's reason to believe it's not genuine or it's an ongoing illness. But for the OP's situation it's not appropriate.

I've not heard from the LA over DS2s attendance which is much lower at 63%.

We had a similar thing. It’s just bad luck and a worse immune system. I’ve made my feelings very very clear that I won’t be sending in a child who is vomiting or has a fever. I pretty much only keep my kids off for those reasons because I have a job and it’s actually a massive pain to keep them off school. If anything I think I’m rather strict, it’s just one of my kids has been sick a lot. Annoying, yes. Avoidable, no.

Absolutely no bloody idea where got this from. As full time. carer to a disabled child, with my own mother undergoing cancer treatment whilst my Dad was unwell at home himself lockdown was not a time Could have or wanted to continue.

But judge away with your judgemental c*ish comments if this makes you feel better about having no regard for anybody else. You do you.

@Equalbutdifferent I would love someone to take this to court then! I have no clue really on how equality legislation applies in reality, that's really interesting.

LAs might welcome the chance not to be required to send angry letters to all, regardless of circumstance (no idea, have no dealings with our LA as am far too far down the tree!)

If I didn't have so much marking, I'd be tempted to stir up a campaign...

Here's who did

They aren’t automatically generated where I worked

We got a letter when DS's attendance was 70%. I just ignored it.

It's probably 68% now. He was diagnosed with an autoimmune condition last summer and has picked up everything possible he could get together with the side effects of his disease.

There's been very few weeks that's he's attended for the full week! My main concern is his MH due to his condition which involves invasive treatment so school can do one quite frankly.

He's still well above average and gets high marks for all his homework anyway.

Yes, it often does work with parents who don’t want to be shown to have not been sending their children to school for any reason .

The letters I’ve seen ( and I’ve had one myself when my son was off school with serious asthma a lot ) are never rude . They explain why they are sent , they explain that it’s detrimental to the child if they are off school a lot . I’m not really sure why everyone gets so angry about them . They are a ‘net’ to safeguard children and , to be honest, with all the awful stories you constantly hear about, any ‘net ‘ helps ! If your child is genuinely ill, then ignore it, or have a chat with the school. If not , send your child to school, simple , an ms there are definitely a lot more serious things to get so riled about .

In our school weekly newsletter it says every week that they are concerned about the low attendance of some children

And when ill to say what is wrong , s&d so 48hrs off - or ear infection or tonsillitis etx

Im having the same problem with dd(15). When she was little and started reception she was constantly having sickness bugs so her attendance was terrible. From Year 1 to Y8 she was fine and often got attendance awards but since covid she's back to catching everything! She's had covid 6 times now, the last time was 16th February where luckily she was off for 2 days before the weeks half term last week. She went back to school on Wednesday after the teacher strike and she's poorly again - you couldn't make it up! She has definitely been worse since covid and always gets it worse than the rest of the family.

It really doesn't take much to get to 85%.
We are at 88% for my eldest. Just took one bad covid like illness and one stomach bug!

Try not to stress op. It's more common than you perhaps think for a parent to get a letter. You can just ignore them as you know you have good reason.

I've always got them for my daughter (asthma) and this year even managed to get one for my son aswell (broken leg at school followed by surgery and hospital stay). Every one of my sons absences was pre-approved and we still got the letter. The injury was at school too, ambulance called, so they knew it was real!

They're robotic. I wish they didn't do them. I'm a chilled person so they don't bother me and I don't give it another thought. But I know this type of thing would really stress out/annoy my sister and she wouldn't find it so easy to just ignore.

I'm sorry I don't have the studies to hand, but there is a proven link between COVID infection and reduced immunity 😔