Unauthorised absences wtf are we supposed to do!

[dreamingbohemian]

Surely everyone knows that it's nearly impossible to get GP appointments these days. And surely everyone understands that sometimes your DC are too unwell to go to school but not unwell enough to get an emergency appointment.

But my DC's school are now saying any absence that doesn't have medical evidence will be unauthorised. They will only accept things you can get from a GP, like an appointment card or prescription.

So what are we meant to do??? We are finishing the year being this close to persistent absence, which doesn't seem fair. We can't help it if DC was ill a lot this year, but with routine bugs that a GP would never see him for or prescribe anything (including norovirus -- are we meant to send him in and spread it then?)

AIBU to think this makes no sense?

(not school bashing here, they say they are just following policy)

It is worrying that schools think they can or should keep children’s health data on file. Clearly they all slept through the GDPR training!

They simply do not need to see any of this stuff. Children are entitled to privacy around their health.

if you are hitting 90% he has essentially had 3 weeks off school and that didn't include not sending him in when not 100%

if he is ill that much maybe you should take him to see a doctor to check there aren't more underlying reasons for him being ill.

90% means missing a day every 2 weeks. Generally schools are more concerned with lots of odd days than a child with an illness that keeps them off for 2 weeks because they know from experience that it's the children missing odd days here and there that are more likely to come from less than ideal homes. In your case it may be genuine illness but they need to set a threshold to investigate.

Children with medical issues and/or disabilities will be known to the school and they have different systems in place (my dd barely made 70% attendance on a good month! no questions were asked)

Government guidance says they aren’t allowed to ask for medical evidence unless they doubt the voracity of your claim the child is ill. I fought back on this and they immediately said they didn’t doubt he had been ill and agreed to normal sickness procedures.
Absolutely ridiculous but you do have to get firm when schools overstep because they are under silly pressure from LA and ofsted. You have to be an equal and opposite pressure without being rude or aggressive.

I suppose it's possible his immune system is weaker after having Covid last year. But I'm hardly going to be able to get a GP appointment because I think my kid gets ill too often, they're all garden variety bugs that kids get.

It's ridiculous. You can't get a doctors appointment where I live. When my kids are ill I've had to take the to the urgent treatment centre at the hospital.

My daughters school sent me a statutory warning letter. She isn't even statutory school age.

If it’s just one of those standard letters that they spit out when attendance falls below a certain level, I’d 100% just ignore it. Especially at this point in the school year, as there’s sweet FA you can do about it. I wouldn’t even contact school to explain, honestly. I’d just think Oh well, hopefully next year’s better.

My child had covid (1 week off school), scarlet fever (another week) plus two sickness bugs. Aside from the scarlet fever the others weren’t medically treatable. It’s very annoying (trust me, me taking time off work isn’t ideal!) but also just an everyday situation. Kids get ill.

Children with medical issues and/or disabilities will be known to the school and they have different systems in place (my dd barely made 70% attendance on a good month! no questions were asked)

How I wish that were true. I've provided DD2's medical records direct from GP to counselling letters from NHS services, private diagnostic report from a specialist private paediatrician, diagnosing anxiety, ASD and ADHD, have emailed the school every time informing them of why DD2 is absent (due to anxiety/emotionally based school avoidance) and they are still marking absences as unauthorised and I'm being threatened with fines by the local authority. I've also pointed out the Education Act and the guidance from DfE that I copied to the OP earlier. The last attempt is that the private doctor is going to write directly to the school and local authority. Some schools say they don't accept evidence from private providers - and good luck with getting an appointment with CAMHS. Two years to wait even if you can get a successful referral.

I'm not asking for additional assistance/benefits/money/transport/support by the way, I just want to not be fined and allowed to deal with things in our own way, with DD2 not being pressurised to attend school more than she feels comfortable to - as it's counterproductive. She's still certain that she actually wants to go to school though and not be home educated - otherwise I'd have withdrawn her in an instant. I just want to be believed and not feel like we are making things up.

Tell them you will try to schedule his illness with the next time they go on fucking strike!

I totally sympathise- my daughter was off with covid and then chicken pox only a month later. This was Spring LAST year 2022. No issues with absences before.

Got sent a passive aggressive letter stating she was not to be off sick again till December 2023! I wrote back to them quite thinking this had been a typo but apparently not- I thought it was pretty unreasonable to say the least! Can’t be helped if they’re ill.

She was also attending speech therapy (for a morning each week) at our local hospital (that was organised by the school) yet the school still marked this down as unauthorised absence!!! Nor did I realise if your child is off for one day poorly it’s classed as two absences- one for the AM and one for the PM.

Dreading Autumn already as that’s when all the germs and illnesses start off again x

We had this last year, DD seemed to catch everything going, sickness and diarrhoea, virus and chicken pox, before this she was rarely ill since a baby. We received a letter too. There was nothing we could do, if a child is ill, they’re ill, her absence is fine this year.

They could be fined for a lot of unauthorised absence.

Threads like this one make me feel very relieved that I no longer have school age children as mine are all now in their twenties.

There was some of this bollocks creeping in when they were still at school, but from what I hear it is far, far worse now.

Schools are under such ridiculous pressure from Ofsted and the DfE regarding attendance targets that common sense and discretion seem to have gone out of the window.

I work in an urgent care centre (walk in) and some days we can have 5-6 not very ill children brought in just for certificates of attendance to show the school

Thanks, that’s really helpful re attendance figures.

I was also meaning how are they storing the “evidence” that they are asking for from parents. E.g. if parents email a copy of a medical report or letter or a photograph of a prescription (with identifiable details on)?

I think a pp said their GP had said schools couldn’t hold this info. I’d be interested to know more about this.

But the problem is, with our school, and lots of the others on here, even if an underlying problem was identified they would still be questioning attendance.

We have a clear underlying health condition, all info documented and provided to the school, and it makes no difference.

And the flip side is there isn’t necessarily an underlying issue - some children just have a bad year and catch everything going round.

Is your child off ill constantly for long periods of time?

You can't go to school for 48 hours after vomiting or diarrhea obviously they don't and can't expect a GP for that... usually theres not even anything really wrong (could be they ate too much, migraine or travel sick or whatever) but its the schools rules on infection control.

If a child is off regularly like every other week especially for long periods like a week+ without any known reason then its going to flag safe guarding.

At this time of year the likely have loads of people pulling kids out for early holidays to beat the price increase and probably have pressure from above to crack down on it too.

Same happened to me. Got a letter to say that DD's attendance was 93% and we needed to show a drs note if she was sick again. I ignored it.
The letter actually.made me laugh as she had been sent home on 2 separate occasions for vomiting at school and their policy is the child cannot return until they have been well.for 24hrs after

You are being unreasonable. Surely it isn't that hard to get a slip with the appt time on it so you can have the absence authorised.

15-16 days off sick is a huge amount for a child who doesn’t have any pre-existing medical conditions. I haven’t had that much time off in 30 years of working. I think you should take him to the GP because if he is genuinely that ill so often then he needs some blood tests.

OP, is the underlying cause disability related? My DS suffers from two autoimmune diseases, one of which is covered under the DDA. When the school sent the same letter to me I sent a nice but firm email stating that it was a form of discrimination (which it is; he has frequent episodes of illness-that-don't-require-a-GP-visit related to his conditions). They backed down immediately.

If not, then keep records: a spreadsheet that lists date, type and duration of illness, treatment or medical help sought (if applicable), time and method of contact between you and the school. Send an email, every time, your child is off sick, and then file that sent mail as evidence should you need it. In the very unlikely scenario that the local authority does decide to take you to court, you produce your documentation, you keep calm and factual, and they won't have a leg to stand on. You could also get an email from your GP stating that they can't and won't provide verification of medical appointments.

They're chasing parents who don't give a shit, and therefore won't be able to substantiate their argument that their child was genuinely ill. You aren't that parent. You'll be fine.

(It's shit, by the way, and you shouldn't have to do this. It makes me want to scream when the school does this because it IS discrimination and it's just a shitty reminder that my darling DS will never, ever be 'well' and it makes me hate the feckers. I also know it's not the school: it's the local authority and the government and I would like to tell them to their faces to get to fuck. But, deep breaths, I can't. So I keep records, and I sent factual, polite but firm emails instead.)

Based in working in school offices for 10 years and attendance being a major part of my job.

@AnoyDad2023 It is. My GP point blank refuses to issue anything at all. I don't know any GP that will.

Lol what blood test do you think shows up the risk of d&v, viral illnesses or injuries requiring medical attention? Most parents with common sense know when children am too unwell for school or have an infectious condition. One only has to look at the green book to find the school exclusionary period