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Original poster

School coming to home to view sick child - Normal?

719 replies

CandlelightGlow · 16/03/2023 10:59

I'm feeling really sensitive right now due to work stress so please be kind.

My 5 year old is off with chicken pox right now. He got the spots on Sunday, he's been quite poorly with it Monday - Tuesday, very sleepy, then very uncomfortable Weds waiting for the scabs to form. He's just started to feel better today but the school have an INSET day tomorrow anyway.

We just had a knock at the door, and it was a teacher from DS's school! He was very reluctant to come downstairs because he's only in his pants and thought the teacher was there to take him to school. She was very nice and said it's sad that they have to do this in this day and age but it's completely normal and they do it for everyone who's been off this length of time.

He's been off for 4 days? His older sister is at school so we've still done the school run every day. To be fair as it's an inset day tomorrow it will be over a week by the time he goes back on Monday. But I've never had a teacher come unannounced to our house to check on our child. Can someone reassure me it is actually normal and they don't think something bad of us! My poor boy is just ill. I've called him in and updated, updated again this morning saying he would be back on Monday!

OP posts:
Pizzalover11 · 17/03/2023 21:08

This would happen in my school, any long absence would have a pastoral staff member doing house visits. It's just a welfare check.

Masterofcats · 17/03/2023 21:13

Have any big child protection cases happened in your area? If so they may well have brought this in recently. In areas where a child is killed / harmed often everything will ramp up a gear.

joisanangel83 · 17/03/2023 21:14

Is it not in the Keeping Children Safe in Education guidelines that a school should have eyes on a child who hasn’t been at school every 3 days? This is the policy at my school and the Attendance Team conduct the visits. They can even do it via Teams and video call the child.

BallroomBitch · 17/03/2023 21:18

I had this in October with my 15 year old, when he didn't answer the door, the school called me, and had to talk to him by 12pm or they were involving social services!!

Goodread1 · 17/03/2023 21:19

Safeguarding check that is and is normal

MixedCouple · 17/03/2023 21:27

Just contact the school and ask for a copy of the sick policy and teachers duties in this regards.
I'll ask my brother as he is a teacher but this sounds well dodge.

Mumwithbaggage · 17/03/2023 21:28

I certainly would never visit a house unless I was the Designated Safeguarding Lead (DSL). Or I knew the family very well and wanted to drop off a card from the class and wouldn't know - just post through. Seems very odd to me. Would be frowned on where I work. Definite overstepping.

BronH · 17/03/2023 22:08

Don’t believe a word of it?!!!! What on earth are you saying?

Supersands · 17/03/2023 22:14

I think they are having to be hotter on safeguarding. My child has autism as part of ehcp funding has a tutor who sometimes phoned or checks in if she is I’ll.

stacyvaron · 17/03/2023 22:37

It's incredibly rude to go to someone's home uninvited and unannounced.

Jennybeans401 · 17/03/2023 22:37

If there are concerns about safeguarding them yes it's understandable.

Three days off for chicken pox is nothing, my dcs were very ill with it. Under normal circumstances I wouldn't expect a teacher at my door

PollyPut · 17/03/2023 22:45

@CandlelightGlow i think it's safeguarding, they need to check the child is OK.

There was a tragic case of a child who could have been saved if his school absence had been acted on a little sooner after the parent died unexpectedly at home. It seems that the school did try to check on the child. I remember reading it here: www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/jun/08/boy-4-died-alone-in-hackney-flat-two-weeks-after-his-mothers-death

I know it's off-putting to have an unexpected visit but I can see why it might be done

FeltPenThief · 17/03/2023 22:51

Well done @CandlelightGlow for not spiraling (I know how easy it is to get stuck in that loop), you've done really well to keep things in perspective and be measured in communication with school.

Although it doesn't sound like this has a bearing on your recent visit, persistent lateness will flag if nothing else because you're on a fine line to affecting school attendance. Arriving late before the register closes doesn't affect school statutory attendance, but once the register has closed, your child's late arrival will. School will want to do all they can to get your children in school for registration. In a small primary, it doesn't take very many persistently late families (especially with more than one child each) to really affect school attendance figures.

stayathomer · 17/03/2023 22:53

Emma2023
Omg! You seem so calm that they were contacting social services about you even though clearly you’d done everything as you should have. I’d have been furious. My youngest is in year 10 and it is a very good school, we got very lucky - but with the current government overreach I’ll be pleased when it’s done.
I was shaking and didn’t sleep for days. I spoke to the head and he said they have an ‘x days and you have to contact* policy and ss had looked at everything we sent in and it was fine but the school was to keep them up to date if a similar number of days off continued. It is so scary!!!

Verbena17 · 17/03/2023 23:02

Our secondary said it was 10 days before a check was made.
Our DS (autistic) was school refusing at the time (they couldn’t support his needs) and had been home for a while, even though the LA Specialist Support Services had been to do a session with us to help support his eating disorder, and the welfare officer from school and another teacher came to my house, and said they had to see him in person. Bearing in mind, home is his safe space, where he doesn’t have to ‘mask’ and feels safe.

When I said he was upstairs in bed sleeping, they insisted on me taking the male teacher upstairs into his room to check he was there! DS hid under the duvet and whimpered that he was there.

He never went back to the school and I wrote a letter of complaint.

That being said, there will be families where children are at risk and so it’s a tricky line. But for a child with usually good attendance and chicken pox, you’d have thought they would have waited a few more days until after the weekend to visit you.

ktbee · 17/03/2023 23:04

Our school does this, they're really hot on attendance and more schools are doing it. It's all about schools trying to improve their stats so please don't feel you've done anything wrong or are being watched.

Simone91x · 17/03/2023 23:21

I’ve said you are not being unreasonable but I honestly think it would be down to councils/where you live. Just an opinion though. I had fabulous care when I was pregnant but many others hardly had scans, midwife appointments etc. obviously due to funding. I would be pleased to know schools were checking up on absent children x

Okaaaay · 17/03/2023 23:28

There has been a recent shift for us - nursery now have to call us if the child hasn’t arrived on an ‘in’ day by 11am. I took him to grandparents a day this week and got a call (I forgot to tell them). They told us there has been a shift in safeguarding policy hence the checks that all is ok. Appreciate that’s different to your situation, but it may have prompted some schools / nursery to take a more extreme approach. So sorry, super stressful.

ElonsMusky · 18/03/2023 00:16

I live in the US so don't know how things are done over there but if my kids' teacher ever showed up at the house bc my kid was out sick with chickenpox, I would laugh heartily as I shut the door on them. We don't really go for that sort of overreach here.

Chilena2022 · 18/03/2023 00:43

my son is a 5 years old and he has autism. he is in a reduced timetable (2 hours per day), this week I did not bring him ( too much hassle, I need to walk 20 minutes to school, then another 20 minute back home, then another 20 minutes to pick him up). last week he was only on Mo day in. The school haven’t called me why my son has not be in.

Pinkfluff76 · 18/03/2023 01:02

That sounds very odd. Sorry OP. Hope you’re all ok

FixItUpChappie · 18/03/2023 01:16

teacher responded with "I need to have eyes on him"

Yeah right - I would definitely have told her to jog on and closed the door.

However, I'm not in the UK so just generally can't wrap my head around the big brother stuff going on over there with respect to school. Does it serve to get that smaller segment of families who never send their kids to school to do it or does it just harass everyone else? I would be interested to know.

toomuchlaundry · 18/03/2023 01:20

@FixItUpChappie it’s called safeguarding, trying to help vulnerable children and reduce abuse. Also the outcomes for children who regularly miss school is marked compared to children who have good attendance

FixItUpChappie · 18/03/2023 01:30

Do you think it is easy to spot a vulnerable child?

I think there are usually some indicators actually...

-child is dirty, unkempt, poor hygiene, untreated lice/scabies
-child is not dressed appropriately for the weather for example
-unusual bruising, injuries and odd explanations
-the child doesn't come with lunches
-child is withdrawn, acting out
-child makes negative/unusual statements about their home life
-the parents are not reachable/there is poor communication
-the parents have poor presentation

And yes, attendance - definitely. However what OP is describing is not like the lack of attendance that would signal a safety concern.

I says this as a social worker - just being away for 4 days due to the chicken pox is not a child welfare concern. It would be reasonable to give the parents the benefit of the doubt unless there are a host of other issue surely? If a school is worried I would think the first port of call would be to open the lines of communication with them, ask curiosity questions and see how things are going at home.

T1Dmama · 18/03/2023 02:23

Nope, never been checked up on like this! I
actually find it quite intrusive and would probably put in an official complaint.
If I phone in and say my child has chicken pox/covid a sickness bug or whatever, I’d expect to be believed and certainly wouldn’t expect a teacher to knock my door.