School coming to home to view sick child - Normal?

[CandlelightGlow]

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!

That is v odd

Me too! If my daughter was unwell and asleep in bed, there is no way I’d be waking her and bringing her down stairs. I’d be telling the person at the door that I’ll get her to call and speak to them when she wakes up! I would find this incredibly intrusive, even though we have nothing to hide…. I would be asking other parents if they’ve had similar calls as I wouldn’t be taking a secretary’s word for it that it’s policy if it’s not documented on line in those policies!…
also often if DD is ill, I’m up with her all night, so if she’s sleeping during the day I probably would be too!!…. I’d be pretty miffed if someone knocked my door making demands. I email in them turn my phones off and go back to bed!

Doesn’t it

and if another parent said they were planning to do this on the basis of the same scenario as the Op has described ie persistent lateness and didn’t bother to call on day 2/3/4… then I would be very clear that the parent didn’t have an iota of support from me with their complaint

@CandlelightGlow how far away are your from school

I've said before and you didn't reply and others have asked as well after me

Why are you often late to school ? You need to leave earlier if this happens a lot - which you say it does

@Blondeshavemorefun

we asked questions the Op does not want to answer (distance and also why on earth the SAHD couldn’t call the absence line on day 2/3/4 when the OP was tied up every minute of the day on a workshop). So the OP won’t be back. Which tells us all we need to know and explains the school’s visit.

If a family refused to open the door to school staff and it was later found out that the child had been abused, would all the posters on here who say they wouldn’t open the door say the school should have done more or say it wasn’t the school’s business. And if it wasn’t the school’s business whose was it?

If a parent reports absense due to chickenpox then I wouldn’t be expecting daily reports of illness. Chicken pox doesn’t go away in a day or two… a week is ‘reasonable’ absence for chicken pox.
different if a parent messaged in that child had a ‘headache’… you’d then expect daily reports of absense and be concerned if it lasted more than a day or two.
my daughter had a sickness bug the other week and I emailed in that this was notice of 2 days absense because their policy was 46 hours off after any sickness.

personally I think it depends what is ‘reasonable’ absense for any given illness.
I still wouldn’t expect a home visit unless we’d been flagged as a child of concern.

The type of families who should raise concern choose to ‘homeschool’ and no one checks up on them. (Not saying all homeschoolers are bad btw)

my school’s policy is you ring every day.

Previous two schools exactly the same.

and I strongly suspect it will be exactly the same at OP’s school. The pastoral member of staff that paid the Op visit will know the school’s policy and the law inside out and back to front. She was not a teacher. She was part of the school’s pastoral team

It’s 3 days here. It’s a new policy though. I nearly left my sick 10 year old and 13 year old at home together so I could work nearby. They’re sensible and used to being left. Luckily I didn’t as school came out to check on the 10 year old!

They were very nice and we just had a natter and they said not to rush him back.
I think it’s not a bad idea in terms of safeguarding a child and checking for DV type issues. It did seem a bit full on when I wasn’t expecting it though!

Seems so @Lovelyveg82

Esp as sahd as well could have rang

It's all about balance though. There are going to be a lot of home visits going by your book PLUS if there's no concern it's a bit OTT not even to send a message to alert the parent and inform them of the visit.

You don't safeguard if you have no concerns it's odd and it would create a lot of work..

There was a tragic incident at my school involved mum and Son... nobody went round to the house. It was too late.

The school missed the important case.

I can see you've taken it up with the school and they've responded it's a whole school policy - I'd personally be flagging up that it DID upset your child and caused you stress just so they're aware of that because I get bloody sick of policies being shoved into place without any thought as to the consequences of the policies for their user group. It's also a tad unfair that they don't mention this on any of the policies they legally have to have made available to parents as well - again, it's stress and unnecessarily causing a rift between schools and parents.

It's also a fucking huge chunk of staff time - especially if chicken pox is doing the rounds like it is in my own kids' school at the moment - considering schools like to complain about budgets and staffing, doorstepping families randomly demanding to "have eyes on" the child is a bit much... and that phrase would have got my back up so much because it DOES have connotations and it's not necessary to go around pissing off your entire parent base constantly when not needed - doesn't support the harder to reach families who you might be concerned about, doesn't support those families you're not massively concerned about but does piss everyone off quite splendidly.

Plus if I have an ill child who has finally cracked and gone to sleep - I'd be really bloody annoyed at having to drag them out of bed to appease someone randomly doorstepping me in the middle of the day.

This!! Some people would soon be pointing the finger at schools in the event of safeguarding issues

Disgraceful attitude.
Why on earth would you want to make it harder for schools to safeguard?

They're SCHOOLS not the fucking Sweeny rocking up demanding you haul ill kids out of bed and in front of them in their fucking underpants.

@CoffeeWithCheese i dont think anyone was hauling the child up

You sound like a character from Eastenders

I’m guessing you’re prone to hyperbole in RL

@T1Dmama

i remember chuckling at your post on another school thread. You like to make “official” complaints to your DC’s school, yes? 😂

T1Dmama · 06/03/2023 20:37
Mark complaint to school as ‘an official complaint’ otherwise they won’t do anything.

Happened to us too, my yr7 son was hit by a car OUTSIDE the school, and we were assisted by the teaching staff into the ambulance, so they knew it really happened. They still came to do a home check and sent me many, many attendance alerts through their app, despite me keeping them updated regularly. Just ticking a box I think, but was a bit annoying! He had 100% attendance prior to this, is an exemplary student and was/ is never late.

They demanded that a child who was not happy at being made to go see the school staff member in case they were being asked to go back into school was brought in front of them, child was only wearing pants at the time because of itchy spot factor (and if you're ill in your own home and only want to wear pants then that should be utterly fine).

Then the parent was told that the school "needed to have eyes on him" - so yeah - hauling really.

That’s not what “hauling” means

Guess what you want - I'm actually very calm and cooperative with my kids' schools - possibly because they don't act like utter power crazed wankers and if they have anything they want clarification on, they ask like sensible normal people and not like some of the dickhead schools that people worship on MN.

Always a sign you've lost the argument when you start resorting to random personal insults and assumptions though :)

Had the pastoral care worker left without seeing the child

The next knock at the door would have been social services

If a family refused to open the door to school staff and it was later found out that the child had been abused, would all the posters on here who say they wouldn’t open the door say the school should have done more or say it wasn’t the school’s business. And if it wasn’t the school’s business whose was it?
Agreed.
They'd be claiming it's awful and that something should have been done by someone... As long as that something and someone never minorly inconveniences them because if THEY are subjected to a policy concerned with keeping children safe they'll be all over the internet pretending they're the big 'I am', demanding proof of medical qualifications, telling the school to fuck off, telling school to stay in their lane, refuse to engage and would shut the door in their face.
😂

Nailed it