School coming to home to view sick child - Normal?

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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!

Not all schools start at 9am. My local Junior school starts at 8.40, and the Infants at 8.50.

@MarynotsocontraryI’ve worked in schools for over 20 years, and this is quite common if there is a concern; it could be high levels of absence, or it could be something that the sibling has said that caused concern, or there could be another reason. Ultimately, it’s for the welfare of the child.

This is all about the school's needs OP. Their attendance figures.
I'd ask for a meeting with head for clarification and progress to governing body. Right to privacy and family life trumps her need to be seen to stemming the national tide of non attendance

I would absolutely complain to the Headteacher and Ofsted about this. Have you looked if there is any guidance anywhere about this too? I know from both kids in Primary this has never happened at our kids school (mine have very good attendance but some of my friends kids have had to take at least a week off feeling poorly and I would know from my friends if the teacher had knocked at the door-my friends would be fuming to say the least). At most, an email from the teacher to say if the child is ill but well enough to do some work, they could send some school work suggestions after a few days of being ill (but only if the child was well enough ofcourse and was staying off just not to spread infection e.g. chicken pox).

All you have to do at our school is leave a message on the answerphone. Make sure you take this further.

My children's high school do this now. They tried to visit my son at his dad's house as he was off sick with a horrendous cough/cold, he was with me at my house though so didn't get to see him (The school have his dad's address as the main home as it was our matrimonial home and I moved out). It is a safeguarding check. It is rather annoying seeing as I called in every day and only keep my kids off if they are really ill. I don't understand why they would want to come into contact with sick children!

kind of home where my children would be in trouble

I understand what you're trying to say OP, but there is no 'kind of home' neglect and abuse can happen in any home.

Happily though, I don't think this was a safeguarding check (in the child protection sense of the word). I think it's because you didn't call in each day and so were in breach of the absence policy, if anything it was more of a low level education welfare check rather a safeguarding check.

I've worked in Children's Services up and down the country and in various national roles and this is quite normal in some areas, especially if attendance drops below a certain level. Usually it would be a pastoral member of staff in my experience but not unheard of for it to be a teacher.

I would think that the person who came to the door should have explained exactly why they were there: eg in the event of absence when we haven't seen the child for 3 days, we have make a visit for safeguarding. Or whatever. It's weird and possibly a bit incompetent that the person didn't explain, and instead left you terrified.

DSL at a school.

We conduct unannounced visits rarely, usually if a child has been off for more than 10 days without explanation and our LA education welfare officer is unable to make the visit (usually it would be then).

If the school has a safeguarding concern they would normally refer it to the local authority to make any checks, so I wouldn’t worry too much OP. I’d be a bit miffed, though. You should clarify with the DSL or Head on what their policy is.

A child who has been off for four days with explanation wouldn’t normally warrant a home visit, and even one with safeguarding concerns around them, I would expect the school to refer to the LA, not turn up unannounced!

Also I've been scouring their website and they have absolutely no information about sickness policy. The only statement in relation to absence is that they do not authorise leave in term time anymore.

Since covid there is a much bigger absence problem with schools (particularly on Fridays) so the school might be being proactive. Often chicken pox affects lots of children at once so they may have lots of children away at the same time and crossed a threshold where they need to be seen to be doing something about the problem

I would find this outrageous, the fact that a teacher has your address to me is odd in itself. Do they just hand out your address to anyone? How intrusive and odd. I would make a complaint. Seems like they often do these tick box exercises re ridiculous policy but then often miss real cases for concern...

I would be calling the Head Teacher immediately and asking for an explanation. If they have issues with your child they should be following proper procedures. If this is school policy they should tell parents that they may do this.

It wouldn't happen at my DS school. Who was teaching while the teacher took time out of the class to visit you?

I haven't heard of this happening for reported illness at the school where I'm a governor, but I know home checks take place in other circumstances. I would guess that either your reports haven't been picked up, or there's something else going on that you're not privy to, and the school are being extra cautious overall. I wouldn't worry too much about this. As a parent who's been on the wrong side of 'procedure' in the past, I know this is easier said than done.

Weird, intrusive and unacceptable. Complain!

Ah okay sorry I feel really bad now. Just got a call from the school after my message and they've explained it's whole school policy and my DS was about the 4th child she had seen that day!

I feel really guilty now, and as suspected I think my work stress had riled me up and made me feel quite defensive. No harm done though

Thanks for all of your replies though, they really did talk me down.

Go straight to the headteacher, ask for clarification on the sickness policy at the school and the official guidance on this. Explain exactly how you felt and how distressed your child was.

No school age children anymore but certainly never heard of it. Since when did schools starts behaving like the Gestapo?.
I would be writing a strongly worded email to the school and copying in the LEA!!

I've never heard of it happening but your best bet would be to make an anonymous post of a local Facebook group or something to see if it is actually your schools policy. Perhaps they have had a recent safeguarding issue and have implemented this across the board.

I'm a children's nurse and I would not be impressed at an Unqualified professional attempting to make a decision about whether my child was well enough to attend school. I'm not sure the school have a legal right to do this either

No problem
Its better to work with the school and show you have nothing to hide, getting arsey is more likely to make them think there is an issue but I completely understand it’s not a nice thing to happen

I have never heard of this for an absence of 4 days. That’s incredibly intrusive and I’d struggle to believe that any school would have the time or resources to do this for every child off only 4 days for an understandable reason like chickenpox.

I haven’t read the whole thread, but there’s got to be a back story of bad attendance or some other reason for this?

I don't understand this at all. My kids teachers are busy teaching them, they are not just available to drive to a kids home.

What!!! That teacher should be attending the inset day, preparing lessons or enjoying downtime - she should NOT be acting as police for the government's policies. That is not her job. School will be doing this because they are afraid of falling below nationally-set attendance targets and getting down-graded by OfSted - what a waste of these skilled professionals' time! Talk about Big Brother.

I've only ever known it to happen when a child is persistently off and there are concerns.

We had it once a long time ago when DS was very unwell with a chest infection. He has lung conditions which the school knew about so it really hot him hard and he had been to the hospital for a nebuliser and was on very strong steroids at home.

I was the same as I had a DD at school, in attendance every day despite my being utterly shattered. They could have asked me there as I saw his teacher. I had also phoned daily at their request too to update.

Yet a self important clipboard woman and a education welfare officer turned up on day 3 od him being off. I was so cross!

I asked why on earth they had not contacted me, that I had kept school informed. They demanded to see DS and the edu welfare woman said "well he doesn't look sick to me." He was grey. He literally had to be carried down stairs.

I pointed out his illnesses, and she said "do you have proof". I said the school has seen all documents on him joining.

They then left and DS was very upset.

I actually made a point of emailing the edu welfare lot and the school. The school apologised. The other lot were just rude about "persistent poor attendance" and how they would "refer to social services". My DS' lovely consultant emailed them a strongly worded email (pre-covid and he's since left sadly) telling them what for. Funnily enough we never got that referral.

It just annoyed me because there was a set of siblings in DS and DDs classes who were off all the time but they never got grief.

We often send someone out for safeguarding checks but only if there has been no contact from home when a child is off for several days.

My DSIL is a DSL in a school. This is not unusual but is more common in certain areas.