To think attendance messaging has become insane?!

[JustDiscoveredBueno]

Schools are germ pits. DfE's answer? Make them even more so...cos having more sick kids and staff (if possible) helps attendance and education!!!! Everyone knows that you learn at your best when you're ill or spreading illness.

Absolute madness. My dd is in year 1 - this year she's had more viruses/sick bugs than ever and it's clearly due to people sending in sick kids. The most recent illness - she had a temp of 39.8 and when I rang the office to say she wouldn't be in - they said "why don't you give some calpol and send her in mum" I said no she's clearly very unwell she's laying in bed burning up and delirious- she had an ear infection and chest infection and ended up on antibiotics with pneumonia!! Then when she was well enough to return happened to be a pe day but due to her pneumonia dr advised she shouldn't be running around outside so I told the office and they said they had nowhere for her to go during pe so she'd have to participate- obviously I had to keep her off an extra day as she wouldn't have been well enough to participate and apparently they couldn't accommodate her to sit in the office or the other year 1 class for the pe lesson.... I am expecting one of these shitty attendance letters any day!

On the other side of this, there are many children I know of that are kept off because parents can’t be bothered to bring them and they desperately need to be in school. I hate having to justify why my child is off but I know it’s good they go to protect the ones that aren’t genuine.

I’d be sending that HoY a strongly worded letter that she is a) not medically qualified, therefore should under no circumstances be ‘advising you’ on this and b) your child’s medical information is confidential and none of her business

DD’s HoY asked to see the results of her MRI scan as she knew that she’d missed a few hours of school for it on the day previous. I went absolutely ballistic

We got a letter from DS's old school (we've moved them all to a much better one now) to tell us that his attendance percentage was far below what was expected at 60 something percent and reminding us of all the various punishments we might face if we didn't improve. He had one week off with norovirus and we were less than a month into the school year 😐 I threw the letter in the bin before we even left the playground.

Some of these are awful.

This school year has been non-stop for us with illness. I just feel despondent that it's becoming so normalised. People act as if everyone is staying off with a minor cold, but how much of all the constant crap that's going around is really just a cold? People are staying off - including teachers - because, despite all the pressure, despite giving those parents that send their kids in looking green carte blanche to help 'educate' other kids who will then be off, there's a fuckton of illness in schools and wishing it away doesn't work! This approach congratulates the arsonist and penalises those burnt.

We had a chance to go forwards and things are going so far backwards, the arguments are so illogical, that policy makers might as well walk on their hands and teach their bums to talk. Maybe they already have.

As for those that 'can't be bothered', how many are there really? Why aren't the reasons being established? There are certainly weeks when I wished I hadn't sent them in healthy to just come home again with something else - would have been better for all our health. Certainly would have been better for their education.

At this point if a school fell down and hurt kids, government/schools would probably send parents a bill and say it's their fault the school fell down. Followed by an attendance letter, saying kids don't get hurt by buildings falling down. Followed by an article in the mail or telegraph blaming polio closures from decades ago for the schools falling down and really it's actually good for kids robustness.

Not sure why people are getting het up about it?

If you know your child is ill don't send them in. If you get a letter, just bin it.

My DD hasn’t had any days off sick this year (also year 6). Five seems quite high to me.

Some parents will give in to the pressure, the ones who already send their v unwell kids in will be encouraged to go even further and for others it's unkind, additional pressure that sticks two fingers up at them and their kids.

Mostly, I'm het up because it will mean even more illness in schools, with a growing proportion of those kids/teachers developing long term conditions as a result of crap policies. It's an unwillingness to spend comparative peanuts to support lower levels of illness. It's anti-education and anti-health whilst pretending to be the opposite.

I feel school abscences are a symptom of an issue, be it illnesses, delays in medical treatment, poor SEN provision, indequate pastoral support, lack of parental belief in the school.... etc.
If DC lessons are "theres no specialist teacher for this subject, read the textbook whilst some poor sod does crowd control", or DC is being bullied, or surrounded by apalling behaviour with no consequences, then I get why families become disengaged from schools.

The words of someone who has never experienced the wrath of school pen pushers re: their child’s attendance, despite it being very clearly documented that she has a chronic illness.

Yes
I have never had so many days off sick myself
Both my kids have had more "fevers" than ever just since September and they are in high school.
Sending sick kids to school means 5 other kids minimum get sick!

The colleges are at it too. I get endless texts about my teenagers. That never used to be a thing, surely. They're almost adults.

In the same assembly my GC's school celebrated getting an award for inclusiveness and then for the first time talked about attendance and gave out awards. The school has the blanket 48 hour vomiting rule (even if you know that it isn't a stomach bug) and counts medical/therapy etc appointments as absences. The irony was lost.

Absolutely. Schools are encouraging sick children to come in to school to boost their attendance figures which are suffering because of a few families who now don't see the value of the school following lockdowns. Children come in, infect others and the attendance rate falls further. If your child is poorly, they are poorly.

The school aren't interested in your child's welfare, only their own data. I'm a teacher - I care about your children and their futures, not data targets for the government to justify their policies. Believe me, most classroom teachers care about children, not data. Management teams who dont teach your children care about data.

I hope all the sick children discussed on this thread get better, and in their own time. This is a real bugbear of mine - school management need to remember what's important. Children. Simple as that.

That's ridiculous. As an adult any absences due to disability are recorded seperately

Because they put the absolute fear into these kids about attendance, my youngest dragged herself into an after school play on her fourth day of absence even though still very unwell and knowing I didn’t approve. This meant she would have to return to lessons the next day, despite the fact she was running on adrenaline and masking with painkillers.
Went in unwell, realised she was not as recovered as she had thought, and asked to go home, they refused. Despite the fact they knew she had been sent to A and E by the GP only days before. Then, in a triumph of irony, the whole place got shut down due to a sewage issue.
I imagine the teaching staff didn’t sign up for this either. I feel for them too.

The issue is that schools harass responsible parents, with genuinely ill children, who are engaged with the school, often have had years of good attendance behind them and have often provided medical evidence.

When it happened to us I was gobsmacked at the level of harassment. We’d had zero issues with school previously.

Our child got very poorly towards the end of secondary after years of 95-99% attendance throughout primary and secondary.

When our child got ill, after the first week, we had almost daily phone calls from them, some days 2 different members of staff called us, attendance/welfare officers turned up even after medical evidence was provided, we had demands for us to take him into school to be seen and various threats. The even turned up at our house on days we were at medical appointments/in hospital with our child despite us informing them of these times. When the door wasn’t answered, they wanted to know why we weren’t at home IF our child was too ill to be at school. 😡

We had kept them up to date and provided multiple medical letters. The doctors were all appalled but said they had seen it before. One of the doctors told the school to contact him if they wanted further confirmation. The didn’t contact him but continued their harassment to us.

In the end, I did lose it with them. I said we had done everything expected and much more and that and that other than keeping them up to date, that I wouldn’t be engaging with them.

Covid hit and that put an end to it. Without that, I don’t know if the harassment would have continued. It was very stressful to deal with on top of our child being very ill and going through tests and treatment. Our child was feeling so ill, worried what was wrong with him, missing his friends and stressed about his upcoming GCSEs that prior to getting ill, he had worked so hard towards. He didn’t need the schools harassment on top either.

Some of the comments from a couple of members of the leadership team were disgusting. If our child hadn’t been so ill, maybe we would have made a complaint and taken it further, but at the time we were just trying to get through.

I lost a lot of respect for the school system and many of the staff, mainly the leadership team. They could and should have dealt with it much better.

@Definitelynotme2022 they rocked up at my house on day 3 when DS was off. Said they needed to do a welfare check. Totally OTT and I can't help wondering if me being a single mum in the less upmarket part of town is a factor there. Bet they wouldn't go to the posh houses pestering doctors and lawyers nannies.

Did you let them in? I certainly wouldn’t have. They had no authority or reason to be there

I'm not surprised you're angry. This is outrageous. I hope your dd is OK.

True. The ridiculous form filling I had to do recently for having 2 days off due to a migraine - thanks menopause - was actually offensive.

@MaloneMeadow no. I talked to them on the doorstep briefly. They probably now think I have my ex taxidermied in the living room or something 🤣

Never mind that, if you have a chronically ill child you will just be harassed forever because they are… chronically ill and in bed a lot.

Further to my previous post, what I found interesting was that when my child was ill over a 4 month period before covid hit, the school were only bothered about attendance.

When I chased for work, they were not bothered with providing it at all. Individual teachers were great when I contacted them, but if I didn’t, the school was not bothered in the slightest about the education side of things, just attendance. That really changed my view of them. That and the fact they were not actually interested in how my child was doing health wise, it was all about attendance. It’s a terrible system.

They don't care about the kids, only the figures for the schools reports, be it attendance or exams.

They'd rather have a disruptive child with 100% attendance, spreading all kinds of germs, than a well behaved one who will stay at home when they're sick.