To tell the school to get lost

[Maisemoo]

So had 4 missed calls from DS10 school today while I was in a meeting so I returned the call as soon as I saw this. Lady on reception told me I had to come in for a meeting regarding sons attendance as is 89.9% which is below the 90% threshold! I explained since Sept son had E. coli (for which hospital letter was shown), D&V and covid, he also finishes 20 mins early every 3rd Wednesday to attend CAHMs due to his ASD and anxiety- again school have the paperwork for this. Receptionist kept telling me I wasn’t in trouble and not going to be told off- to which I replied I am an adult so was not in fear of being ‘told off’. Receptionist said I had to attend Monday at 10.00- I start a new job Monday so told here I won’t be attending- all the absences were genuine and I had no interest in a pointless meeting. Receptionist rang 3 more times with different days and times before getting the hint I was not interested- AIBU to refuse this or should I just of sucked it up and gone

But in this case the school have third party evidence including of hospital admittance . The child has attended for 2 previous years with high attendance so clearly the risk is low.

they are just going for the low hanging fruit , they know that this family is conscientious so easy to target and get their percentage of follow up stats for Ofsted to compensate for all the real problem cases where the parents don’t even call back.

@moggo

Well, that is what one poster is saying happened and to be honest, it doesn't surprise me. When I worked as a supply teaching assistant, I experienced quite a lot of insane procedures in the various schools I worked at. I haven't left the current school for 4 years because it is the first sane(ish) one that I have come across.

they are just going for the low hanging fruit , they know that this family is conscientious so easy to target and get their percentage of follow up stats for Ofsted to compensate for all the real problem cases where the parents don’t even call back.

^ a total waste of resources when there are families with issues who need support.

Argh, definitely not unreasonable. I would struggle not to lose my cool with this.

I don't think it is a case of low hanging fruit to be honest. A family who are good with attendance who happen to have had an unwell child aren't magically going to improve attendance off the back of a meeting.

It's just box ticking.

That’s exactly what I mean. It’s easy to bring people like this in for meetings so they target them first

Again, .01 percent absence is not going to tip the op’s child into failing exams territory. If he is going to fail his GCSEs that amount under 90%, then he should have had intervention at 90.1%, because he would already have been struggling then.

see what support can be given to raise children's attendance.

What support can the school give to stop the child catching E. coli or d&v? Are they going to go round to the op’s house and teach them all to wash their hands or something?! The school will have a policy that says children must stay of 24/48/72 hours with d&v… perhaps they could help by getting rid of that?! If the kids go in throwing up they will have better attendance figures…

It just sounds like a bit of poor judgement from someone on reception. Give them a break! They talked to you as though you were a child because they talk to children all day. They were saying it to reassure you.

Schools have to worry about attendance because there is a crisis in attendance since Covid. There are children who never came back or children who now routinely miss significant amounts of school. This is more important than you being irritated by a persistent but polite low-paid admin worker.

Just go through the motions. Allow the school to secure the information and be nice to the receptionist.

If you deter schools from investigating absence, you are obstructing safeguarding practices. Sometimes, keeping children safe is more important than a small inconvenience or irritation to you.

Anxiety-based absences have increased massively since covid. It seems excessively defensive to assume the school is questioning whether or not the absences are genuine. Schools do not just question absences because they think parents are liars or not too bothered about school attendance. Sometimes they just want to be sure that there isn’t more going on than the main reason reported, especially if an absence was for more than a few days - it’s not as if most parents bother to give more than one reason for an absence, as one reason is usually enough. The school may just want to check in to establish whether the extended illnesses have exacerbated the anxiety and whether that in turn may have lengthened the duration of the illness absences, or whether there is more medical information that they ought to be aware of to understand whether the absences were of a normal duration for the illness initially reported, or longer due to an additional issue as yet unmentioned. Talking to parents can help people in school to connect up different pieces of information they have received at various points so that nothing important gets missed.

The problem is that everyone has got obsessed with "auditability" and common sense has left the building.

Surely schools should focus their limited resources on unexplained absence or cases where school intervention would be helpful. In OP's case the school already had evidence at their fingertips of the hospital records for e-coli and knew that the school itself had sent the child home for D&V. What is the actual point of hounding parents for meetings in this case? What is the point of the school making 4 phone calls to harass OP into a meeting to tick a box? It's just a waste of resources.

I wish I'd done what you did op. Completely genuine reasons for DC being off that year including chicken pox which isn't over in a day. Followed their own sickness procedure. Before I was allowed to wfh so nearly three hours in commuting meant that I had to pretty much take the day to go to the pointless meeting. I explained that with both of us working full time out of the house we weren't going to be keeping DC off on a whim and having to take the time off work.

D&V can last a day or two, or a week or more. If it lasts longer than expected, then the school may decide it doesn’t have enough information. If it lasts less time than expected, the school may instead be asking the parents to collect their child and give them another day off. Schools are expected to keep track of hundreds or even thousands of children, they won’t always make the right call.

My daughter was close to the concern level. What tipped her over was school sending her home sick one day. We then got the attendance call about her being below 90% !

The school are just trying to meet their legal duty. Below 90% attendance is low and is atypical. The "Keeping Children Safe in Education" update for 2023 also now states that children who are repeatedly absent are classed as "Children missing education" and, as such, the school must investigate in line with their legal safeguarding duty. That's the case even if there are reasons listed against each absence. The school can't just decide not to bother.

You clearly haven’t spent much time in a school if you think teachers have more time off than pupils (outside of the long overdue strike action)