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 means literally nothing. Especially where disguised compliance is concerned. Two children, who have started a new school, after holiday have not been seen since being on roll. They would be utterly failing at safeguarding if they were not logging it. However, what do the people actual working in this were know. You also have no idea what cpoms (or other safeguarding) records have been passed on.

Feel like I’ve stepped into a weird wonky parallel universe. Either many people are on a wind up or the comprehension skills of many adults has taken a turn for the worst. The op hasn’t lied- she said to MN that DH was on a plane which he was at that time to explain the reason behind him not being able to call school (to avoid the barrage of questions of why he couldn’t from MN) but didn’t tell school he was flying as it wasn’t relevant.

When school asked if children were home alone (a different phone call) it was because op was on a train and school assumed dad couldn’t be because well he’s male perhaps (at this point DH was not yet flying ) really not difficult at all to comprehend and understand. So perhaps a good idea for those struggling about what’s written - why not read the post twice or maybe three times before responding , might help.

Op rather than safe guarding , I’d say it’s attendance they are flapping about as there’s so much pressure from some councils on attendance figures- hence the daily calls to put the pressure on for a return to school. Just call tomorrow morning again as usual and say they’ll see the children on Monday , then leave any call unanswered and go about your day.
You’ll have called which is what you’re required to do. If they’ve any welfare concerns then they’ll escalate if they feel the need, but I’d put a bet on it being attendance figures.
I wish them well over the weekend and I hope they love their new school.

YOU wouldn't.

But a shit parent may pull kids out of a school where teachers were becoming too invested and move them, register at a new school and then not send them because they cba / whilst bruises fade etc.

They're not being overly cautious because of YOU but because some parents are shit, and keeping them off can mean both a great parent being sensible and a shit parent being negligent.

They don't know because no one really ever does so they're being cautious.

They’ll be looking for whether the OP has a plausible explanation. Potential
oddities like her being out of the house when her children are at home….Does she then have an answer for why that is the case - ‘who’s looking after the children’? Remember, she’s the one who’s called in every day, so to the school she is the primary parent, they have no idea if dad is present, at work, on a plane, or if granny is able to babysit. How long has this gone on for? Is her story consistent from one day to the next (therefore you need to ask each day). I would imagine they are probably logging all the details on a central system. So that if anyone else logs a concern it can be cross referenced. Say the child has visited A&E on one of those days with an injury that could be accidental, but might not be. Oh, but the child is also supposedly off sick from school with covid….At some point, after a certain amount of time, yes, someone probably will visit the house. And if I was the OP I wouldn’t refuse to let them in on the basis she hasn’t yet unpacked from moving.

If your attitude towards the school is anything like your attitude on here, @MytosisIs, then that's where the problem lies. Not with your children having the bad luck to be ill on their first week at the school.

You're also being OTT about Covid testing.

You said your Dh was on a plane, and you had back to back meetings…..

I do understand why your annoyed.
Dd started a new school recently and she was off sick ( Chicken pox and sickness bug) back to back for a couple of weeks in her first month. I got a call from the head asking for a doctors note !! After chatting with her i did understand why as they didn't know her and us as a family but it was annoying and embarrassing tbh

if you have two very sick children why are you on

a train and your DH on a plane? Other than that I get your situation and I think the school seem a good school to be checking up as it’s their first week. Hope you all feel well soon.

No, I don’t understand why you were confused.

Plenty of other people got what I meant. You completely misread it and then started calling me a liar.

Its not Schrödinger, it’s you misreading things when there’s a perfectly adequate explanation for where everyone is.

Just accept it is a safeguarding thing and entirely necessary to protect children.
Nothing personal.

Fair enough. I suppose it just feels personal when I’m here just trying my best in a PITA situation.

I've only read the OP's posts.

The school don't make any differentiation for COVID, I think most are now just saying treat is like an other illness.

It is quite unusual for otherwise healthy children to be off school for a full 5 days. It is quite unusual for siblings to both be off for 5 days.
The timing is very unfortunate.

I hope you all get well soon.

That doesn’t answer my question. Having a process to follow is a sensible way of approaching things, and keeping logs that you cross check with other providers is also a sensible way of ensuring people can’t just move on to avoid concerns. But my question is about the bit that harasses the OP.

How does this bit of the process - Calling the parent up each day and getting them to repeat what the have already messaged to the school that morning - help safeguard children whose parent engage in disguised compliance?

I don’t see how it does anything at all to check for disguised compliance. If anything it seems like a system designed to let disguised compliance work, it’s just a hoop that every parent will have to jump through. Which is what people who engage in disguised compliance do.

But not in the same sentence 🤦‍♀️ him flying was a different day from when she was on the train. While on the train it was her husband that was with the children and it was a mild irritation for the op that school assumed kids were home alone rather with their other parent. It’s really not difficult to understand what was written at all.
Op is allowed to vent her irritations on here and she took onboard it maybe because of safe guarding but she’s still allowed to be annoyed at the constant respective conversation in one day on a second call (each day) especially when busy with work.

My DC’s old school never called regularly.

Id call in sick and email each day they were off, then just turn up when they were better. Wasn’t concerned at all that I wasn’t being harassed

It depends on what the school are doing with the information. The fact stands that the scenario sounds odd and I would find it strange that a school blindly accepts what they are told without further contact. I’m not saying that the school would prevent anything but the OP seems totally oblivious to the way her story sounds. Like I said before she might know her kids are unwell but no one else does.

They likely would have in the first week the children were due to attend

If i tell school dd is unwell and won't be in for x amount of days they leave me alone. I think its because its a new school they haven't seen your dc yet so it's safeguarding.

This would piss me off massively and I'm an ex teacher so I absolutely get the importance of safeguarding.

I know there's a country-wide push on attendance at the moment but this is really quite OTT, especially demanding to know who was looking after the kids.

I also think it's disgusting that they advise people not to test for covid.

@VickyEadieofThigh

Daft is it?

Absenteeism in Schools:
How large of a problem is school absenteeism? The average student in the United States (K-12) misses 4.5 days per school year, while the average teacher misses 5.3 days per school year (Azor-Martinez, 2014.) This results in 164 million lost school days for students per year in the United States (Bright 2009). The website Governing (2019) reports spend per student per year for each state in the US, and reports the average spending per student as $11,762 per year. Assuming a 180 day school year, the average student generates $65.34 in funding for the school district per day. Therefore the total loss of funding associated with student absenteeism each year is $10.7 billion dollars in the US. While illness is not the only reason students are absent, it is believed to be the main reason students are absent from school each day.
This loss of funding does not include additional costs to the school district, such as paying substitute teachers when the regular teachers are out sick. The National Education Association (NEA, no date) reports the average substitute is paid $75- $125 per day depending on their state of residence and their credentials. If the average teacher misses 5.3 days of school per year, this costs the district an average of $530 per teacher, per year. Since there are approximately 3.2 million public school teachers in the US (National Center for Education Statistics, no date), this suggests teacher absence costs districts $1.7 billion per year in substitute teacher costs. Reducing the financial impact of student and teacher absenteeism is a major concern for schools.”

Oh fgs. Frankly glad you’re an ex teacher if you can’t see why it’s a red flag that two children who have just moved schools, who haven’t yet attended the new setting, have been called in sick for a number of days - together, not one after the other - in the first week after the holidays. And that when the school did call the mum - who is the only parent who has been communicating with them about the children (so they have no idea if dad or anyone else is present) - she was on a train. Yes, there are reasons, which the OP has explained, to us and to them, but you really think it’s unreasonable for them to ask the question?

Of course, that's why they are in the guineas book of records as the only children never to have been off school for a week

At my children's primary school overall attendance was always over 95%, I can say for sure that it was very unusual for a child to be off for a full week as I was a governor and it was reported on

Ime your children are the outliers

It's clearly been very annoying for you (and possibly also for the school, I doubt the people you're speaking to made this policy). But expecting the school staff to see through walls and know that your children are - thankfully - perfectly fine, is asking a bit much.

There's a big emphasis at the moment on chasing up absence partly because there are now 140,000 of what they call rather creepily "ghost children" i.e. kids who are either persistently absent or who just never come to school any more. Understandably the government, schools and charities are really worried about what's become of them - from whether they're healthy to whether they're getting an education, and of course whether they're being harmed.

Now obviously we know and you know that's not your kids, but if you wanted to pull your kids out of school permanently what better way of doing it than to officially leave one school and then never bother to turn up at the next one?

So please - bear with the school. It's bloody heartbreaking to think that some parents can't be asked to get their kids to school, or actively want them stuck at home where they're not being seen by or meeting other people. That's what they're trying to stop, you're just feeling the effects of that effort.

OP, you're sounding like a child.

After goodness knows how many people have told you this is the school doing their safeguarding job. Numerous people have politely explained that as you've moved school and you're currently an "unknown" to the new school that it is their responsibility to follow up on your children's safety.

And yet you're still bleating on "my children's previous school wouldn't have done that" etc etc.

Grow up OP, take a deep calm breath and stop being so defensive- and aggressive.

In the UK its CME (Child missing education)

where a child fails to attend school on the agreed date, make reasonable enquiries to establish the whereabouts of the child and consider notifying the local authority

www.scie.org.uk/safeguarding/children/education/missing#:~:text=contact%20parents%2C%20carers%2C%20relatives%20or,from%20where%20the%20school%20is

It’s not safeguarding, how on earth could they tell by phoning up every day about Covid that there were any concerns, other than the parent was quite responsible about contagious illnesses!

They like many schools are judged very strictly on attendance. It’s not a great policy, too blanket wide with no nuance and nothing is left to the school to weigh up. But there you go, it’s a nationwide policy.

From a health point of you it’s ridiculous though. Covid is still quite a nasty disease and many relatives are still vulnerable. You did the right thing OP.

I don’t understand you thinking of changing schools though, most schools would be like this.