School attendance

[Fantasia99]

I understand schools have to reach certain attendance %s, however in my son's school, the children who come first every week get to pick a new book for their classroom, and are 'celebrated' in assembly. My son's class is never first, despite him getting 100% attendance, and it feels like the children being punished for either their classmates being unwell, or their parents not bringing them to school. They're the only class not to have ever got a new book. He's come home today saying what's the point in going if other people don't turn up and he doesn't get a new book because of them. It's disheartening. Does anyone else have similar or am I just being soft?

I don't understand what this has to do with this thread.

I've been the teacher of a class like this. Attendance and punctuality was great for 90% of the kids to but like 2 kids were dire and dragged the whole class down. They literally never had a chance of winning and it was disheartening for me let alone the pupils. I raised it with head an we now award individuals for excellent attendance. Of course we then get the poor attendees complain it's not fair for their kids to miss out.

I would talk to the teacher and tell him how he's feeling and she should raise it with head.

This is the problem with collective reward and punishment - it's unfair and pits the group against the individual.

It can create team working/ a sense of shared achievement or equally resentment and blame.

And who is likely to be the kids getting the blame? Those with chronic illnesses, coming from difficult backgrounds etc. - just what they need is another reason for people to dislike them.

My problem with the way schools address attendance is that instead of dealing with long term truanting - which is difficult to deal with and often caused by the above issues, they pressure children who already have 'good' attendance to never have a day off sick to 'buffer' the figures.

But sometimes it's not fair. 99% of the time poor attendance isn't the fault of the child

Seriously has covid taught us nothing! I object to this is for the spreading of bugs, kids don’t want to miss the award so go in with all sorts, my son is vulnerable and a cold puts him in hospital, kids should not be going in when sick!

I'd say poor attendance is 100% parents fault at primary level. But it is fair for them to miss out in this situation as only those with 98.5% and above get the reward so it's a very small group. The majority of the pupils miss out on it. Yet the only parents to complain it's unfair are the ones with chronically absent children.

Ive seen the stats at our school.

It is depressing how high the percentage of absence is due to term time holidays.

4 x more is term time holiday than everything else put together.

I'd say poor attendance is 100% parents fault at primary level.

You think parents are at fault for their children being unwell?

Cloudofdust a huge proportion of absence is parents opting to pull kids out for term time holidays.

Nope, I didn't say that anywhere. I said poor attendance is 100% a parents fault.

Nope, I didn't say that anywhere. I said poor attendance is 100% a parents fault.

But if the child is ill and therefore has poor attendance, how is that the parents ‘fault’? It can’t be helped, no one is at fault.

Yes this is shit and your DCs teachers will probably agree. I wouldn’t waste your time going in and speaking to the school. Schools are judged on their attendance and unfortunately there is nothing an individual headteacher, school or even local authority can do to change it. It’s a much higher and deeper issue.

To be considered poor attendance, at least in my school, they need to be absent at least 11 days. That's a significant amount. So significant and unusual that the huge majority of pupils do not fall into this category. If a child does have a significant illness that requires a longer time off, that is recorded differently on the register. It will not affect their attendance records in the same way.

The children who typically fall into the poor attendance category are those who are off for a whole week here and there due to 'tummy bugs' yet come back in with a tan sharing details of their holiday.

If a child does have a significant illness that requires a longer time off, that is recorded differently on the register. It will not affect their attendance records in the same way.

Clearly not in all schools. One of my children had one awful year of attendance at school. Medical evidence provided, school kept informed, everything done right, but it was still recorded in the same way as anything else.

It certainly wasn’t our fault. Our child was too ill to attend as written in medical evidence. Hospital stays, on medication etc, I’d love to know how his poor attendance was our fault. 🙄

I can't explain how your childs school records absences or classifies it. But I will redact my statement and say 99% of poor attendance is down to parents.

Sunny holiday vs the class gets a new book

Unsurprising some people do it tbh

This is the same for us but I would suggest our families are probably the minority. Fortunately there won't be many chronically ill children (certainly not in our small rural school) but still plenty of parents who take the mick. I think my son's are all down as authorised absences but they're still absences at the end of the day and will pull the average down for the school

I can't explain how your childs school records absences or classifies it. But I will redact my statement and say 99% of poor attendance is down to parents.

You have no idea of percentages, as you’ve already shown.

What I will say is that when our son was ill, we met many parents with poorly children who were having the same issues as we were, with schools chasing them about attendance. These were children in and out of hospital and/or with long term illnesses. Again, they had provided medical evidence. They received shitty letters and had welfare officers sent to their homes.

I think poor attendance through no fault of anyone’s, just bad fortune in being ill, is not just 1%.

There are many ongoing health issues that a child can be under the care of a GP and it’s as controlled as possible, that may result in more than 11 days off. Migraines, asthma, anxiety, bad periods etc.

When we were discussing with my child’s doctor about the schools awful behaviour in terms of his illness, he said he gets a lot of parents with chronically ill children saying the same. He was disgusted but not surprised.

webuiltthiscityonrockandwheat

The secondary school my child attended that we had issues with, had 180 ish pupils per year. In my children’s year, that we knew of, there were 6 children with chronic health issues, all having a lot of time off which wasn’t the parents fault.

That’s over 3% of the children in the year and there was maybe more I wasn’t aware of. Then there are things like migraines, period issues, mental health issues...again, fuck all to do with it being the fault of the parents if they miss time but which can all be regular problems.

This

Meh. It’s a stupid system and I don’t agree with it. My 5 year old has poor attendance due to his chest/lung issues- it’s not something he or I can do anything about, and I don’t see why a child should be ‘punished’ for such things. He’s more vulnerable to viruses, if anything I’m preventing him from spreading them to other kids by not sending him in (I work 45+ hrs a week, and I’m a single mum so it really doesn’t benefit me to keep him off).

Primary school children aren’t responsible for their attendance, the parents are. It’s archaic to put that pressure back on the kids!

I should have clarified that at primary it's a lot to do with the parents. My DS school has about 110 kids in and as far as I'm aware there's only 3 with chronic conditions, including him. Lots and lots going on term time holidays though

I'd speak to them. It's an awful policy and stands to stigmatise those DC who have a lot of medical appointments and/or particularly chaotic parents. Primary aged kids are overwhelmingly not in control of whether they attend school or not.

@Pooooochi the stats on term time holidays are not a surprise. Fines are not the answer, though there is a difference I think between visiting for a cultural event or an elderly relative, and what I expect most are, sitting in the sun for a week or two.