Unfair Attendance Reward Scheme at School

[AttendanceRewardConcern]

My kids school has low attendance statistics and the school have decided to start a new scheme to try to improve attendance (or to demonstrate to Ofsted that they are taking action). Children with 100% attendance for the entire half term will get to have a non-uniform day on a day of their choosing. I have 2 children at the school. 1 child has no health issues and was given the reward. The other child has a medical condition that meant they missed 3 days of school due to an exacerbation. The school are aware of the condition and have been provided with evidence from the child's health professional to explain the absence. However, the school have said they can't make any allowances whatsoever when applying the reward (including for children with severe disabilities). I think the scheme needs to be drastically changed and have written to the school explaining my concerns. After initially dismissing my concerns, they have now decided to refer to the LA's legal team. AIBU to think they either need to make an allowance for absences related to medical conditions and disabilities or to entirely scrap the reward scheme? Not to mention how this is encouraging children to come to school sick and focusing entirely on presenteeism above all else.

Yanbu but unfortunately a lot of schools are doing similar now. I think it’s ridiculous and only ends up with kids spreading germs and making everyone poorly because they insist on coming in when they’re ill. It is ableist and discriminating towards children with health conditions. But I’m not sure how far you’ll get with pursuing them given the incessant drive for 100% attendance these days x

Yanbu but this is a common practice.

In order not to discriminate on the grounds of disability, id have thought they should discount any absences directly related to the child's disability/long term health condition. So a child with severe excema off with a skin infection should have that day discounted. Same child off with a cold, it would be counted.
I'm with you OP I think the system is very flawed as in many cases its just rewarding the good fortune of robust health.

I understand the motivation behind reward schemes.
Absence is a very real issue in many schools. I'm certain they staff appreciate that attendance is more difficult for some, and that those children shouldn't feel penalised for having a disability or health issue.

Perhaps a class reward system would be better? The class with the highest attendance % over a term gets a non uniform day. None of the children would remember which of them had 8 days off or had none. There would be no one left out if the reward. But there might be a tiny motivation to be in school if there's a healthy competition towards the top of the weekly leader board.

Yanbu, I have 3dc, 2 with multiple health issues which has meant I've seen both sides of this.
Dt are opposites. dt1 attendance this year is 89% (all approved either by hospital appointment letter or doctors note), all related to long term health issues and has never been reward for turning up at school (even though everyday is difficult and 89% is amazing). Dt2 has 100% attendance and has never struggled to go to school and has had multiple awards. I don't begrudge dt2 getting an award but over the years I have come to see how we are showing children that we are discriminating on health/disability grounds because its not a level playing field. It's not a lesson I want my dc to learn. We're showing them that being present is more important than physical and mental health. It's made such a big thing of that dt1 has anxiety about getting told off for not attending (becsuse mum will go to prison) because that's the message our dc are being fed.

This seems to me like indirect discrimination. Putting in place a blanket policy that would discriminate unfsvourably against those with disabilities, should be challenged.
School should be making reasonable adjustments to allow your child to be on a level playing field with their peers.

Yanbu. It's awful discrimination and as you say also encourages people to come in when contagious which is profoundly stupid

No kidding but mine would be promising to do the housework for a whole weekend to let them miss school once a day every half term so that they didn’t have to get a non uniform day. It’s one of those ideas that is unfair but schools hoops jumping is what it’s all about.

I despise rewards for attendance of young children. In the cases where there aren't justified reasons, it's usually the parents rather than kids that are to blame.. so those kids get to miss out on their education AND something fun with their friends? I can't make it make sense to me!

Attendance rewards are an incredibly stupid idea, for many reasons.

I hate attendance rewards.

There was a thread the other day about how doing it as a class wasn't fair and now we are seeing the other side of the problem.

It's all bad. But schools are forced into doing it. My DD's attendance was 62% before half term as she burnt her eyeball, like you do, and she has to go to hospital every three days.

Attendance awards are such a load of rubbish.

So many reasons why children might legitimately be off - including disability, other long term illness, SEN assessments etc - as well as just ordinary illness. Why they’d want them in ill is a mystery to me.

Write to the board that they are medically discriminating and encouraging the spread of illness. Any day with a medical letter should not be counted

Ridiculous, I would have challenged that too. My son has asthma so has been in hospital with it usually over the winter. Currently my 12 and 13 year olds are off with a tummy bug ok now but doing their 48 time so as to be well to return safely and not spread it around. You can’t win really, send them in to infect other kids or keep them off and they are punished for something they can’t help. And I’m sure the kids who do refuse to go to school or have other difficulties don’t care about non uniform days so if those are the people they want to encourage to come to school I don’t think it’s working.

These reward schemes are always discriminatory. Yet schools trot them out over and over again.

they also encourage children to come to school sick, which spreads illness to the medically fragile children. When my asthmatic dd catches a cold she can be out for a week or more. Her attendance suffers and she ends up on awful meds just because people don’t stay home when they should.

All reward schemes are crap and totally biased. My DD used to say she was going to be naughty all week so she could get best behaved the next - in 4 years she never once got a god behaviour award, because she was very well behaved, it only went to the naughty ones

It's clear that operating this scheme with no exceptions for disability is unlawful, and I would expect the school's legal advice to confirm that.

Agreed, I posted on the other thread about my child being upset that I kept her off school as per their policy on d&v. She was so keen to get the award at the end of the academic year this time. Putting aside the issues for disabled or ill kids, it rewards luck or parents sending them in anyway.

Luckily our school is fairly discrete (certificates each half term and a small token at the end of the academic year)

I agree. My 4 year old got a certificate congratulating her on her "achievement" of 100% attendance last half term. Obviously I didn't tell her my thoughts, but this is absolutely no achievement on her part. If she misses school it's either a failure on my part to get her there, or it's due to chance (a family situation arising that needs time off, a long term health condition, or just a random bug etc). And all she is is lucky that nothing happened last term, and that she has no chronic health conditions or disabilities that necessitate time off. She's not done anything better than a child who happened to have a vomiting bug, or who happened to have a grandparent die for example.

Obviously I didn't say this to my 4 year old while she excitedly showed me her certificate. But I did say that sometimes people miss school because they have to, and it's not a problem and it certainly isn't anything bad on their part.
I did email the school my thoughts on it after they asked for feedback, but I didn't hear back.

Reminds me of the time DS received a punctuality award in secondary school. I was heavily tempted to nick it, because the only reason he was punctual was because I hounded him out of bed and through his breakfast, and hounded him into having his stuff all ready the night before; and because I took him to school and dropped him off. Left to himself, I hate to think when he would have turned up every day.

I’ve said YABU because you are BU to even care.

My son has had an award and a threat from the attendance officer in the same fucking academic year.

It’s all bollocks.

What amazes me with attendance awards in primary, is its never the childs thing to control. Those who go in every day on time do so because their parents/guardians get them there every day and on time. And they are fit and well.

The dc who regularly are off are either ill (not within their control) or they have parents/guardians who fail to get them to school every day on time (not within their control).

I'd argue its the parents who should get the reward

Our school did something similar (there was an end of year party, but there was going to be a special VIP party for those with 100% attendance) and parents quite rightly went berserk over how discriminatory it was! The school hastily backtracked after reeving hundreds of angry phone calls and emails. A subtle nod to those with 100% attendance is fine by me (it's nonsense, but ok if they just give a certificate or something) but to actively reward certain children and shame others is so unfair when it's something completely out of the childrens' control. Obviously it's to encourage good attendance in those who regularly miss school for non essential reasons, but surely that's more to do with the parents than the children at primary level?

Is this a primary school? If so, why are the pupils being rewarded when it's the parents who determine attendance anyway? Makes no sense at all when children have very little control over their own attendance record at that age.

How can I not care when one child gets to go in non-uniform and the other child will have to wear uniform despite it not being in their control whatsoever? If it was something that could be brushed off then I probably would have ignored it but it will be rubbed in their face when their sibling goes in non-uniform.