To be annoyed at kid’s new school hounding me when they’re ill

[MytosisIs]

We recently moved and so DC are attending a new school. First day was supposed to be Monday.

On Sunday they tested positive for COVID. I had it earlier in the week and really suffered.
I tested them as they were coughing, had a high fever and even D&V.

I rang on Monday morning to say they’d be missing the first day. They said they don’t recommended children are tested but said “You’ve done it now though”. I said well I still very much test for COVID because whilst none of us are vulnerable, other people may be and it’s them I’m protecting.

anyway it’s now Thursday and as requested I rang every day and updated them. But really it’s just ‘they’re still I’ll and have COVID’.

They’ve run me back every single day to discuss ’an update on the kids’. I just repeat myself from what I leave on the voicemail.

Yesterday I was on a train (I’m now negative and have been for some time) and they heard the announcement and asked where I was. When I said was on a train they asked if I’d left my kids on their own!! I said “no they’re 6 and 9!” And they asked who was watching them - their dad!!!

Today I emailed to say I have back to back meetings so can’t call but the kids remain to be ill (DH was on a plane at this point). Again they called me, which I missed. So I found a window to call them back and they again were strange and said “They have been ill for so so long now” (5 days!) asking when it started etc.

Im starting to get pissed off. I’m thinking of pulling them out and enrolling them in another school which we were also offered and according to the receptionist still have places.

AIBU to be annoyed at their persistence? Would they rather I sent sick COVID-infected kids into school? In their old school they were great and just said “We will see them when they’re better, keep us updated”.

That really isn’t what was written.
what she meant was
She told MN that he was on a plane (which he was) to avoid all the questions from mumsnetters as to why he couldn’t ring school. So she was explaining on here as to the reason why he wasn’t available to ring school.
She then was explaining that she didn’t tell school he was on a plane - only that she mentioned here as way of explanation as to why she was the one dealing with school.
She hasn’t lied to school.

There are no masks, no testing, just normal infection control procedures in hospitals now and I dont know a single friend who tests (have friends who are nurses, teachers, care workers etc), so I think you will be in the absolute minority testing your kids

As many of my friends and acquaintances have had Covid in the last few weeks, I would say that a fair few people are definitely testing. Some of them were really quite ill. Not been to a doctor or hospital lately but my dentist sty insists on masks!

You can be livid all you like. But's the advice that schools are required by many local authorities to offer to parents when they are discussing absence due to mild illness. Schools wouldn't routinely offer the advice to give calpol because they trust that most parents are the best judges of whether their child is well enough to come to school or not, and obviously they are not medically trained. However there are a few parents in any school which will consistently keep children off because the child simply tells their parent that they don't feel well, and they're just playing their parents, or because the parent is feeling unwell themselves and this can become a persistent pattern. It is a parent's judgement wehther a child is not well enough to come to school and they then should stay away from school, clearly. But any parent knows from experience that sometimes if a child has a bit of a cold and a slight temp in the morning, then after a bit of calpol they can often feel a whole lot better and are keen to come to school. Parents are often happy to send them in that case, on the understanding that if the child starts to feel unwell again that school will contact them to pick the child up. In most cases the child is perfectly fine in school. If a child is not well enough to attend then paracetamol would not make much difference to them and the child clearly should be staying at home.

"Drug up my sick child with calpol" is being a bit dramatic.

Absolutely agree! Someone on the telephone who has not seen the child giving random and unsolicited advice! And the assurance that the teacher will keep an eye when she has 29 other children to teach, is wishful thinking at best. And who wants to take their child into school to be miserable and upset, only to be asked to come and fetch them again?

No ego here. This is just the formal-sounding "script" that I am supposed to have with parents of absent children but in reality it's much less formal than that and it's more of a friendly chat but that's obviously hard to get across on here. When you are in primary you get to know the families really well, you do really care for the children (and parents too). I really value the relationship I have with them and we get very few complaints about our approach to attendance. I take the time to explain WHY we say or ask for certain things so that parents because as a parent myself I understand that the procedures can sometimes seem a bit heavy-handed when you know you have a genuinely ill child. If that makes me a pompous twat to you then so be it. I guess you'd be one of those parents that I wouldn't have a good relationship with because you'd always be on the defensive whatever I said, but you can't win 'em all, eh.

See it from their pov your kids start a new school they don't go in for the first week and then you change their school again because your being questioned and no one has yet laid eyes on these children. Can you not see how concerning that sounds

How exactly does the school calling and pestering the parents prove the kids are safe? In a hypothetical abuse situation, a parent could have killed or injured their child and just lie over the phone when this school calls. It seems ineffective and hamfisted.

I'm always baffled by the way schools and hv involve themselves in peoples lives in the UK when I read MN.

All of the attendance stuff, checking up, not allowed to take term time holidays, hv getting involved in random things, it's all so odd.

I've done plenty of safeguarding training through school. Calling someone daily when their kid has Covid isn't safeguarding. Sure, take note of it. But safeguarding is a much larger picture. No one would call you daily in Australia because you called your child in sick with Covid.

Surely when you change schools there is some attendance record from the previous school available if they were really concerned. Kids get sick, they have time off.

Unfortunately, the school will not get access to the children’s attendance record, or any other documentation, from their old school until they have physically started at the new school - until they have turned up, they may never tun up, so the new school are not entitled to all the information until then. The children are only officially removed from the old school’s roll and added to the new school’s roll on their first day physically at the new school. This is because it is actually quite common for parents to piss schools around and never turn up where they said they would.

It's been explained why. It's not to do with COVID or illness per se.

It's because the children haven't yet attended the new school , so until that school confirms they are there, they are still the responsibility of the old school/old LA if that's changed. The old school needs to know that the children are attending to rescind that responsibility.

Wrt the phone calls- we would follow up emails/messages about children. Had someone spoken to the family in the morning, then not. Not sure about all schools but ours follows that protocol.

Phone calls- no further action all things being equal until the next day
Written communication/recorded messages etc- ring to confirm.

And if they had, God forbid, those phone calls when the parents lied would be used in court to help establish ongoing and planned abuse.

The phone calls won't stop an abuser if there is one. But they might help flag the abuse before the child is killed.

YANBU OP Would piss be off too.
Another reason I home school my kids.

Children who are being neglected and/or abused in other ways often miss a lot of school. Abusive parents do lie about their children being ill. The school don’t know you or your children, so it is a safeguarding issue that they have to follow up.

<facepalm>

The goid thing about this thread is it highlights how obtuse, difficult or dense some people are, and what absolute shit school staff have to put up with.

People might not like some of a school's actions, but at least understand why they have to undertake them.

With an attitude like this no wonder the school are questioning you.

But OP the old school knew your family, had better knowledge of your children and had already seen them regularly. This new school does NOT know you. They may not even have their previous attendance history yet (I sometimes have to wait weeks for the file transfer from other schools … school offices are busy places).

It’s the fact they are new but have never actually attended that is the problem.

Okay so you think it’s a hassle but try to be thankful that the school is less likely to miss when a child is being kept away from school for other reasons such as being taken abroad for FGM or forced marriage, parent unable to bring because they are drugged up to the eyeballs, etc etc.

As well as the obvious red flags of both children being I
unwell on their first day in a new school after a holiday, I think think that initial conversation with the school on Monday could have raised concerns, depending what exactly was said.

If the OP has said “they’ve got covid - they’re both too poorly to be in school today, but assuming they’re feeling better later in the week do you want us to send them in or do you want us to go by the covid test results?” then this might have been viewed differently than if the OP had said “they’ve tested positive and I’ll be isolating them home at home until they test negative “ as the latter sounds like setting up an excuse for a week off school from day 1, which would have immediately put the school in mind of a term-time holiday (at best) or an abuse situation (at worst).

The OP hasn’t, I don’t think, elaborated on what was said in that first call. But going by the fact she’s been doing regular tests and talking about staying home to protect others, it could have come across to the school like the intention was to keep them off whether or not they were unwell. Which is is an understandable instinct but you can see why for the school it would have added a red flag to the pile.

I’ve been really irritated by some of our schools actions in the past when it feels like we’ve had a ticking off for doing the “right thing” (an attendance letter for time off for mandatory covid isolation certainly got my goat). But ultimately I don’t want the school having one rule for ‘nice parents’ and one rule for ‘dodgy parents’ (as if they could even know for sure which are which) so sometimes it will feel like you’re getting grief for nothing.

What are you on about? I’m not the OP. I guess you’ve answered my question though…

I'm more concerned about the fact you've just moved, enrolled kids into a new school that you like, but are considering putting them in a different school because of a few phonecalls, not because there's an issue with the school itself. Making decisions regarding your children's education because you're upset isn't good judgement at all.

Normal school policy. They self guiding. Don't see the issue. Phone every day and say their I'll.

Agree with this. However, I think (if I assume correctly) that OP is annoyed that she was being questioned about testing her children for COVID and the tone of accusation from the school receptionist as to who was looking after the children. I think OP understands the safeguarding concerns etc, but as someone who doesn't abuse her children, it's not unreasonable for her to get pissed off at the questioning and undertone of 'concern', when there simply is no concern needed. I'd be put out by that line of questioning, too.

OP, I get why are you so annoyed on so many levels. Its absolutely bonkers that families are to be checked by a school! everyday to question their parenting and how they look after their own sick children.
What sort of society is it that there is so many abusive parents that people think its ok for a bl** school to do what you describe?

Its also allarming to see how many people get worked up about the fact that you presumably left the kids at home on their own, just because they cant read and think enough to realise that what they assumed isnt the only option about what the actual situation is.

Funny how peple now get annoyed by someone doing a covid test. Not that long ago it was all about testing and blablablah and now they act as if you cant do a test purely for yourself to know.

Apart from, its actually not funny at all, its very concerning how people can turn around.

Oh grow up. The school are following normal safeguarding protocol. Dodgy parents mo e kids around and don't send them to school. That isn't you, fine, but the new school don't know that, do they? They'll have massive concerns and understandably so. Suck it up, communicate well, it IS a priority.