Is this extremely petty of my children's school?

[PumpkinSly]

I went to the school office today to tell them I would need to collect my two children at 15.05 rather than 15.15 because my ds has an opticians appointment. They asked for proof of the appointment which I don't have. They said that without it, it would go down as an unauthorized absence. I haven't been given an appointment card, or been sent a text or email to confirm the appointment. I went home and rang the opticians who said that the confirmation email has to come from customer services, and they aren't able to do it from the branch. So either we are late to the appointment or, if I pick my children up 10 minutes before the end of the school day, they will get an unauthorised absence for the whole afternoon session.

Aibu to think that this is an extreme level of pettiness from my children's school over them missing 10 minutes at the end of the school day? It's the end of term and I would bet good money that there won't be a full day of teaching and that they will be watching films and playing games etc. This response from the school is bizarre to me, it's 10 minutes at the end of the day!

You have parental responsibility over your children and not the school.
State you will not be disclosing their medical information due to GDPR.
If they chose to mark your children as absent you can simply put in an email that you, as the mum have already informed the school of a scheduled appointment for your child.
Children with ongoing conditions and disabilities must have so much of their personal medical data all over the place!

An appointment card is not medical information

And gdpr does not apply here

That’s so funny! 😂 an unauthorised absence after afternoon registration? Sounds like the power has gone to someone’s head 😂

Our head teacher welcomes children going away for their holidays after Friday afternoon registration. Frees up the afternoon and doesn’t affect their attendance! Win win!

I agree that 10 minutes seems petty but I will also point out how incredibly busy our local dentist must be on Friday afternoons, what with the sheer number of pupils having appointments.
Plus, it really is a pain for the office staff to have to keep traipsing round our (large) site collecting kids throughout the day.

Precious!

Well at least the office staff have a nice break away from their computer and can get their steps up.

After all, not walking enough at work and too much screen time is bad for your health doncha know 😊

This.

I've worked in a school office and did the registers in the morning and after lunch, I never went back in to the records to change it if someone left for an appointment after registration. Every school is different but that seems extremely petty

Can you not just get an appointment card when you're there later then give it to the school tomorrow?

It can't be an unauthorised absence because the child was present for the pm reg mark. Therefore they are recorded as present.

The other variation of this "game" for the morning is the revolving door method. Do not miss the am reg, but once they have that mark they can go out of the door for their appointment and are "present" and can return later. I learned this one the hard way when I made the mistake of taking DS to X-ray early injury aquired in the classroom after it closed by the time we were assessed the previous evening. I stupidly thought that taking him back first thing and minimised learning time lost, but no, the hoops that schools have to jump through are that the child needs the reg mark then they can leave without affecting the data. That 30 mins cost DS his 100% attendance for the year, but wouldn't have if I'd realised and signed him out at 9:15 and got him back by 1pm, even though more learning time would have been lost to travel.

The rules schools have to abide by are daft enough, but they don't help their cause when they add in additional non-rules too, and it simply isn't practical for every appointment to be in non-school time.

S (Sick) and M (Medical appointment) presumably.

I do find this sort of thing silly, yes.

Personally, I would just collect them, go to the appointment and then not give it any more headspace.

I had a really ridiculous situation with the police when my son was younger. I’d specifically booked him a GP appointment for during lunch so he wouldn’t miss any school so I collected him and we walked to the surgery.

A police car stopped as we did so, and I thought nothing of it until an officer got out and called us back.

He asked why my son wasn’t in school (he was in school uniform and we’d just walked from that direction so it was obvious he’d been at school) so I said we were going to the doctors and the officer asked which surgery and wanted to see proof of the appointment. At that time the GP didn’t send text confirmations so I had nothing, he then told me to book appointments for outside of school hours. I explained that it technically was as it was lunchtime and he’d be back in school ready for afternoon lessons. All he could really say to that was to make sure I had proof of the appointment next time as they’d be keeping an eye open.

Just let them record it as whatever they like. It will have zero impact on you and make their stats look worse so just smile and say "No problem!"

As a PP said....it really doesn’t matter to you or your child if its authorised or not as long as generally attendance is good.
It's schools that seem to worry about it.

That is very, very odd.

Yes extremely petty. Can't you get the optician to write the appointment on a card when you're there then take it in to school after half term so they can update it?
Unlikely they will actually mark them down as unauthorised absence for 10 mins anyway though, probably just want to make you sweat in case you're actually taking them early because you're going on holiday (not that it makes a difference)

Never had to prove anything to my kids school.... Email saying child will be late due to dentist or whatever is believed and it's all good. We are in Scotland where there doesn't seem to be the same level of authoritarianism from schools that I see described on here sometimes.

I don’t in why you are bothered @PumpkinSly why are you giving it headspace. It literally has no bearing on anything at all. Who actually will care?!

It's ridiculous and petty, just take them

What does it mean if it is an unauthorised absence in the long run?

What?! How have they even got time to care?? This is ridiculous!

Petty and someone seems to really enjoy having that power. Sorry you are dealing with this @PumpkinSly it's truly ridiculous.

Oh I feel your pain. It can get so petty some times. My son had to have open heart surgery in February and be out of school for 6 weeks. Before then he had had 100% attendance. The school made me get a letter from the hospital and when I asked for this, I was told that was the first time anyone had been asked to prove they were having this major surgery!. Sometimes a bit of common sense is needed

The police state is with us! What utter bollocks!

Taking children out for appointments is disruptive and when I worked in a school office it was a right pain. The chances of the teacher remembering is remote so either had to remember (and we had so much other work and phones ringing). or the parent would come in and often get annoyed at the time it was taking to go and track the child down and wait while they gather their belongings etc.

it would go down as an unauthorized absence

Does it matter?

My Dc are current getting this from secondary school and college because they are on site in exam halls - it's just daft.

I had similar with primary receptionist - after HT and teacher had okay literally and it was only 10 minutes early mid week last week of summer term- did have proof but she still argued as appointment was outside school hours so I had to explain travel time - luckily another staff member came in said child had 100% attendance all year it's agreed kids stood waiting in classroom door wtf at receptionist - we had to run and ended up slightly late.

Secondary - leave pupils waiting other side of locked door - some receptionist won't get up to open - so just have to wait for random staff member I've literally been stood in reception after jumping though all their hoops my child behind door waving and taxi waiting till some random staff member walks though - what's infuriating is kids truanting have no problems leaving site. You end up building in faff time - meaning kids lose more lesson time.