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.

Yes it's a primary school

YANBU in the slightest. It's absolutely discriminatory.

Ds is in secondary and begs me to let him stay home one day so that he won't get 100% attendance! Apparently it's uncool.

I know a school that does hoodies! Hoodies with 100% emblazoned across the back which they can wear as uniform the next year.

And they are black, the coolest of colours. And a hoodie, the coolest of school jumper styles.

It's all a load of rubbish.
School culture is becoming as toxic as the work culture in that being off sick is now classed as a criminal offence.

I challenged my DDs school similarly. She wasn’t the least bit bothered, but a couple of her friends from her support group absolutely would have been.

They changed it to effort based awards. Which also meant they could reward the children whose parents don’t give a shit.

A basic attendance award is just lazy on the SLT’s part imo (and I say that as someone who worked in schools for 20 years). Yes, Ofsted want to see things to encourage attendance, but that doesn’t mean they should happily discriminate against their sick, disabled or neglected pupils. There are ways to have the awards and include all pupils fairly.

They’ve always had these, my best friends used to be taken on trips to Alton Towers every year because they had 100% attendance, I didn’t get to go because even though my attendance was very good I had time off for an autoimmune condition so it was never 100%, it sucked, but that’s life.

I don’t mean to sound harsh, but we can’t all win and be rewarded for everything, it seems unfair when the reason is outside of our control (like long term illness/condition/disability), but the world isn’t fair and it’s probably good that kids come to terms with this.

Attendance is an issue and if this helps then that’s a good thing, if you make exceptions for some kids you’d have all the parents asking for exceptions then it becomes completely pointless.

Class rewards are divisive. The school my niece goes to does this. Her class never win. I said maybe they'd win next time. My niece 6 said no we won't because X and Y are always off sick. The class just gives up because they contain DC who are ill. If DC miss a lot of days through Illness/appointment other DC do notice.

Its also a really bizarre reward. I'm not sure I'd want to be one of a handful of children wearing my own choice of clothes amongst the rest in uniform. The conformist in me would fear standing out like a sore thumb. (Not the point of the thread I know!)

My kids school did 100 percent attendance awards.

In our house, we used to call them "Lucky Health Certificates".

it is unfair but its offsted you need to blame, schools are under so much pressure to tick ridiculous boxes without applying common sense, context or nuance. you literally couldn't pay me enough to be a primary teacher in the current system.

Good name for them

Schools are doing it because they have OfSted breathing down their necks. It is a disgrace really. The staff work their tripe out all year to educate the children, but it all counts for nothing as the school can be downgraded on attendance. Another good reason to stuff OfSted.

When my dds were at primary school, they rewarded kids who'd had 100% attendance by letting them come up and shake the hand of someone dressed as a giant chipmunk in assembly.

The younger kids were crying at not getting to shake his hand and the year 6s were saying Jimmy Savile was inside the costume. Parents were emailing saying they thought their kids had full attendance that term, but apparently it was only for 100% the whole year. They never repeated it anyway. The chipmunk was retired.

My daughter suffered badly from heavy painful periods to the point she would bleed through and would have to come home. It got to the point she wouldn't go in her first day because of the risk of her bleeding through (they have very draconian toilet rules there). So she missed out on the 100 percent attendance bullshit. Their treat was a day at the local theme park so I took her out for the day instead to a place of her choosing.

My kids school does the same. At the end of term everyone with 100% attendance gets a prize. My son had an accident and got rushed to hospital so he wasn’t eligible to be included. He wanted to go to school with second degree burns because it was the last week of term and if he missed a day he lost his prize. Thankfully the doctor said no and kept him in hospital, but my son cried his eyes out. It’s disgraceful.

If the LA legal team say it is OK, ask to see a copy of their advice.

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)

@AttendanceRewardConcern it sounds like you're already all over this, and good for you. The section of your OP that I have cut and pasted above would put your school in breach of the 2010 Equality Act and is therefore illegal. (It's also bollocks as lots of schools do precisely that.)

I think it's insane.

However I live in a country where both school uniform and 100% attendance are very bizarre concepts. Here wellbeing of children is considered important not packing them off to school whilst ill. Bonkers

This comes up time and time and again. People who are quite happy for their kids to get star of the week for behaviour, or awards for spelling, or maths, or get picked for the school play, or to perform a solo at the carol concert or be the popular child for parties or get picked for the football team - then it's "well he deserved it". And there's no thought for the kid who will never win a prize, be popular or get picked for a team. Ever.
The kid who goes in day in, day out, despite having no friends or ever being top or winning - that kid also deserves a chance to get an award.

I get that the kids who have hospital appointments can't ever win an attendance award. Just as the autistic kid, the kid with a facial disfigurement, the slow kid, the anxious kid, the dyspraxic kid is never going to win the other wards - however hard they try.
My child won an attendance award and he was soooo proud. It is the only thing he ever got. Ever. (not even any GCSEs). So YABU

I really dislike this idea of encouraging kids to come in even when they are unwell.
There are vulnerable children with health conditions who are more at risk of catching these things, so if kids come in full of germs and pass them on, it’s the kids with health conditions who end up suffering because they get so unwell that they can’t just come in regardless.

I was a chronically unwell child and spent most of my childhood in hospital with my illness and then because my immune system was compromised, when I would go back to school I would have to spend more time off as I would get every illness. My school would still count my attendance and it would contribute towards the overall attendance of the class I was in. I remember everyone hated me because I always made the class ‘lose’ the attendance award even though it was something I couldn’t help - and it made me feel awful. The way they do it is horrible as if kids are unwell then they’re unwell and cannot help if they’re off. Some kids are ‘blessed’ with good health and shouldn’t be awarded for it when they’ve done nothing to achieve it.

The school could, and should, reward children like yours without the need for disability discrimination against other children.

Part of the problem is also the class prizes given for attendance awards. They are very often not just another certificate - my DD was being viewed by some of her classmates as being the reason they were going to miss out on a trip to Alton Towers. That kind of thing is basically setting children up to be disliked by their classmates for something they cannot control.

It's insane but half the class will probably be in uniform too. Kids get bugs, have hospital appointments, dentist, speech therapy etc etc. There are tonnes of perfectly good reasons why children have time off school. Neither of my children have ever got this reward and we have never taken them out of school for a "fun" thing like a holiday, ever.

I just tried to help my kids roll with it. A bit of perspective that it's ok for them not to win every gold star or prize. These things are often usually not in their control anyway - slow runners are often trying just as hard as quick ones just like slower readers are often working harder than those who whom it comes easily. Maybe some of the "glass children" who tend to miss out on other awards will get this one.

But any award discriminates against other children. And kids who aren't star sports players get the blame for the school not being top of the league. Either you reward certain behaviours and skills or you don't. Not fair to only reward what your own child can achieve. (And attendance at work is a positive for employers).