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.

If that were me, I'd send mine in own clothes on the relevant day anyway, and dare them to do anything about it.

My kids school doesn't do attendance awards, they get good attendance (next year's goal is for 97% school wide) by ensuring the happiness and welfare of the kids. Happy kids learn.

I have one kid with a mild disability and one unaffected kid, if the unaffected kid was getting to wear non school uniform then I'd probably have to keep the other child off school because they wouldn't understand the unfairness.

Exactly. Make school a place that kids want to be. A lot of school non attendance is down to unmet needs of kids with all levels of sen, bullying, anxiety, etc.

The education system needs to stop going after parents and look at its own systems and failures.

If I don't get an adequate resolution, I think I'll be doing this. The alternative is to let my healthy child go in their non-uniform and tell the other one they can't for no reason other than they have poor health. As a mother, I will not be doing that to my child.

I agree these awards are unfair and potentially discriminatory, but all those on this thread complaining about their schools are targeting the wrong people.

Attendance is a major element of any Ofsted judgement; knock-on issues of attainment and improvement are equally important components of a decision. It is really easy for a “Good” school to slip down to “Requires improvement,” by these measures, and with such a downgrading, the Head of a school would have to go, there would be other serious consequences, and staff turnover would be (even) higher, etc.

This would be bad for your children, arguably much worse than hurt feelings at not getting a 100% Attendance Award. Schools are being forced to take all kinds of measures (there will be others that you don’t see) to try to improve attendance.

If you don’t like it, write to Ofsted and your MP to demand change of a system that can impose draconian and life-changing judgments on schools for matters that are complex and sometimes impossible for schools to affect, even if they try (which they have to be shown to be doing!).

Bleating that teachers or heads or your school are mean is spectacularly missing the bigger picture.

Hmm, but most schools aren't quite this stupid though. I agree that the school isn't responsible for the overarching and inherently disablist policy framework here. But it's not Ofsted who have made them choose this specific course of action. My DC school is also getting lumbered with the same big picture, but they aren't doing this.

Additionally, individual parents do have more chance of making changes at the macro level. OP isn't going to solve the big picture herself, no matter how many letters she writes. She may be able to nip this one small problem in the bud.

Micro level lol. Not macro!

There are other ways to show they are trying to improve attendance without having to discriminate those with disabilities. It's not just the Equality Act I'm basing this on. There is also guidance for schools to follow regarding children with medical conditions and how they shouldn't be penalised for absences related to their medical condition. The school could adjust the scheme to allow for such absences or they could look at other ways to address the attendance issue. In my school's case, they need to be focusing on those families that have persistent absence without a valid reason and look at ways to encourage and support them to increase attendance without it affecting other children who are not part of that issue. The headteacher specifically said the scheme was not targetting children like mine where he knows they do their best to attend but sometimes genuinely can't. Yet despite that, my child has been negatively affected by it and the school can't offer an adjustment to the scheme. I don't think they even thought about whether it was proportional or not. The surprise when I voiced my concerns led me to believe they hadn't even realised the effect it would have on children with disabilities.

Yep, hate this. DD’s school do it based on attendance and no negative points. Dd had flu and was ill with a high temp for about 9 days (went into October half term last year so only 4 days of school). She was punished for that by not being allowed in the zero club fun activity non uniform day. Utterly bonkers. It’s a lesson in “life’s not fair” but in the real world, you are allowed to be sick from work.

Hopefully it doesn't come to that and they withdraw this voluntarily. But sometimes, you're put in a position where you just have to respond to something objectively bad by not cooperating with it.

Totally agree

I agree with you. It’s disgusting that they are rewarding children for not being ill, or worse arriving at school and passing their illnesses on to MY children.

Same

But do these awards even help?

There are some factors which can't be helped - a child in hospital, a close family member's funeral, a medical appointment where the parent has no choice over the time etc, and these things won't be affected by an award because there's nothing anyone can do.

Parents who don't care about getting their child to school won't care about an attendance award.

Parents who are taking their children on holiday have already decided it's worth a potential fine, they probably aren't going to be swayed by an attendance award.

Children with long term health conditions or disabilities which necessitate time off school can't be persuaded in by an attendance award - they aren't able to be there, so the award won't help.

So who is being persuaded in? Maybe unwell children who should be kept home (say they threw up on a Sunday but get sent in on the Monday to keep their attendance up). But this is likely to have a negative effect on attendance overall, as they'll spread their bug around.

It is absolutely ableist to have an award that excludes disabled children due to their disability.

It's not difficult - you simply make reasonable adjustments for medical appointments etc. that are needed due to said disability so it doesn't affect their overall attendance.

And this was the advice when I worked in a local authority legal department so if many schools manage to do this there is no reason why others can't.

Please educate yourself.

My daughter’s school have just introduced this - without even informing parents! My daughter was just saying last night how unfair it is because she’s treated the same as her friend who is often taken out of school the week before the end of term/half term to go on holiday whilst my daughter was vomiting for three days and so is below the required %. Attendance awards are just ridiculous and ableist.

Same at our high school.

One poor kid couldn’t go to the year 11 prom because he had been very unwell a month or so before.

In my twins year dd got none uniform day, taken out of school to a fun day at the zoo. Ds couldn’t go because he had missed one day that term.

Parents need to start making these sorts of policies more trouble than they're worth, even counterproductive. Keep DC off for the rewards days if they're not included. If attendance is lower because of them, they'll stop soon enough!

In my twins year dd got none uniform day, taken out of school to a fun day at the zoo. Ds couldn’t go because he had missed one day that term.

Your kids could have missed another day and you could have taken them to the zoo yourself.

I get that things may feel unfair, but why isn't full attendance worth even a token of appreciation?

I can see why they have referred it to legal, this is a very poorly thought through scheme.

firstly these kids are primary, rewarding a child because their parent manages to get them to school. Is beyond ridiculous, it is not in the child’s control the majority of the time. In addition it discriminates against children who cannot attend through reasons outwith their control, disability, illness, parents who are not managing. The list goes on.

overall that needs to be scrapped. LA’s have a scheme, it penalises parents. Rewarding kids for something they have nothing to do with is ludicrous.

Because in general primary school kids don’t decide. The parent does.

Also when children are not there for reasons out with their control, you penalise and shame them with schemes like this. Make them feel different, isolated. The only child in uniform.

it’s just terribly thought through and needs to be scrapped.

Stop blaming the schools and blame ofsted, they're the ones who want things like this put in place.

Sadly it's all about statistics and clearly the Covid pandemic has taught no lasting lessons to school staff about minimising infection spread.