To not understand the fixation on attendance?

[Gardenschmarden99]

Or at least to the level it currently is…

New education secretary and based on her speech to the association of school leaders it seems her focus is on attendance.

Now don’t get me wrong, I’m an ex teacher with two primary age children who go to school whenever they aren’t unwell. Broadly I’m in favour of children going to school!

But I don’t think I’ve met many teachers who really think the current fixation is helpful. For those with deep seated problems, they would benefit from intervention. For those families that were unlucky enough to catch covid and a sickness bug in one school year the rather officious computer says no letters just erode the seriousness of actual attendance problems.

When children are unwell, they shouldn’t be in school even if it makes the attendance dip below 97%.

SEN children without support don’t have an attendance problem, they have a support problem (and I know this is because central government don’t fund local government well enough to pay for it but the kids can’t help that!)

I also think it would be such a crowd pleaser to allow 5 days authorised holidays at the discretion of the headteacher…. And yes, I’d also be in favour of my child’s teacher being able to go to a family wedding or see their child on sports day or (God forbid) have a day out with their spouse a few times a year.

My family live in a European country (not especially known for being ‘progressive’) where all this over focus on attendance is just not a thing. They outperform us in league tables for academic and mental health of children.

AIBU?

A tutor at home while unable to attend school (as hospital education dept also requested) never happened

Hospital education dept do not need school's permission to provide this.

Shorter days - not legally allowed (others have had this)

Yes certainly possible but only with support of outside agencies once graduated response has been followed. If supporting agencies do not recommend, or want us to try other things first, we can't do it.

Ed psych assessment (refused)

In our area, an Ed Psych assessment is not offered routinely and we cannot refer. An assessment would be done as part of an EHCP application or when pursuing a diagnosis.

Extra support in lessons (no funding)

If no TAs available or TAs are supporting pupils with more need, then this is certainly hard to achieve.

Apply for EHCP (No child doesn't meet criteria)

You yourself can apply for an EHCP if you disagree with school (who may well be accurately quoting local authority guidance).

Do something things are awful ( nothing we can do)

It is difficult. Parents come with a suite of requests and hate us for saying no. But there is a process to follow and if you skip any steps then you'll just be rejected by whoever you're referring to anyway.

The hospital was in a different part of the UK so tutor had to be managed via our LA. They did nothing.

Health reasons meant if a full days then child wouldn't manage all week. Shorter days would have meant child was in more regularly.

Schools always have an excuse why something can't happen.
My favourite excuse is child isn't in enough to show if support is needed. We then got child in everyday this meant that other than school child could do nothing other than spend rest of day on sofa and all weekend unable to move. Had to be dressed and fed. School response child in everyday so they are fine and no adjustments needed.
We should have applied years ago ourselves but kept been told if X happens child will get support. And then when that evidence was there they had a new excuse.

If a child needs support and the school needs funding to provide they should damn well support the family and child and get off bums and do the paperwork.

When ed psych finally was involved they asked school to do a referral. 12 months latter school were still saying it's next on my list to fill out

Until the government start lookin st WHY so many people are unable to attend school consistently (illness aside) no amount of we will focus on attendance’ or ‘we will employ 600 new teachers’ will change anything!

I don’t understand why these government ministers think that basically clamping down on attendance is a solution! It’s a band-aid at best.

This might not be the research referred to, but this is recent and has graphs.

https://assets.childrenscommissioner.gov.uk/wpuploads/2023/11/CC-REPORT--Attendance-and-Attainment--Oct-23.pdf

Only glanced but that doesn't look like it is research into low attendance at school means low attendance at work?

Lack of attendance has been proven to reduce your academic achievement. Two weeks off is enough to lower your result by a grade. I’m a teacher I see it all the time, there are students who are persistently off and will not catch up with where they left off and fall behind. Also Lack of attendance can ( not always) signal issues at home- parents not respecting education enough. School refusal. Child mental health issues, abuse at home- can’t come in due to marks on body. Attendance is important so students can achieve, have a sense of routine, be monitored well being wise. One student I know had her daily shower at school and clothes washed as parents were rubbish- attendance made that possible.

It's in the title: Missing Children, Missing Grades.

"We should have applied years ago ourselves but kept been told if X happens child will get support. And then when that evidence was there they had a new excuse."

Have you got the EHCP application process underway now though?

How did you get the Ed Psych involved before a referral had been done?

Your example about the TA is really tough for everyone. It is hard to justify giving TA support to a child who is 'fine' when other children are showing more obvious needs. You see it on here all the time 'my child's learning is being interrupted by a disruptive child and nobody is doing anything about it.' Those are the children who are prioritised for support. In an ideal world you'd have enough TAs to support every child who exhibits anxiety at home - and all the other needs too - but there isn't enough money to pay them. Rare for schools to deny support because they don't care I think. Maybe things will change with a new government.

It is hard isn't it and I can't really comment on your individual case without knowing the full facts. You might have a rubbish school. Certainly, SEND children are being let down by decimated funding, long waiting lists and ever-increasing barriers to access support.

From a school perspective, there is a graduated response and sometimes parents request things that need outside agency involvement or approval - and they say no until everything else has been exhausted.

Similarly you can't just reduce a timetable because a parent asks. We'd end up with half the class missing, or all parents choosing days/times to attend. Again, you have to follow a process to get to that point but I can see how frustrating the wait must be.

My guess would be that the family don't take time off for a cough or cold.

People have no resilience anymore.

The majority of the attendance focus started after the data from the pandemic was released where more than 140,000 children missed more than 50% classes.

Also poor Arthur Labinjo-Hughes who’s father gave the school excuses for his absent who was then found murdered by his partner 9 days after his first absence.

I work for an alternative provision and the amount of children who have not been in education since the pandemic is shocking. Equally, the amount of LAC or those who are on a child protection plan or child in need plan also have concerning levels of absence. Sadly, there are also a lot of parents who do little about their child not attending school.
Higher expectations are introduced as a child can have a couple of absences a year which can then rapidly increase.

@RunningThroughMyHead what does resilience have to do with chicken pox, scarlet fever,covid, strep A , norovirus etc.?

I also think it would be such a crowd pleaser to allow 5 days authorised holidays at the discretion of the headteacher

Headteachers do have discretion, they can authorise any holidays they want to! Guidance states that it should only be in ‘exceptional circumstances’, but the guidance is non-statutory and it comes down to the headteacher’s own attitude in the end.

Yep we do this. We have permitted teachers days during the year for weddings etc. some schools don’t even let staff take a day for a funeral

Don't mix correlation with causation.
Those kids might have had poor grades whatever. It's probably bc they have additional unmet support needs.

I know mn is determined to think that mean schools are stressing out parents for fun, when their children are genuinely ill.

But I think it's obvious that the families being targeted by school, local authority and government campaigns are not those genuine cases.

They are the ones who allow their child to have days off on request, or for very minor reasons, or take many term time holidays each year, or have every Monday off because that's mums day off and she wants a lie in, or have every rainy day off because it's a ten minute walk and they don't like getting wet.

And also the ones who have a day off because they don't have a reliable washing machine, or there's domestic abuse, or there are addictions, or there are transport difficulties, or their employer has changed their working hours.

Sometimes we can help and sometimes we need to explain the benefits of being in school. The approach is obviously different depending on the reason.

Just because you only talk to nice mummies with poorly children who are sad about getting an irrelevant letter doesn't mean that all of those other families don't exist.

We don't really care about someone who has had chicken pox and a sickness bug in the same term. We don't expect sick children to come into school. We don't enjoy upsetting parents. We send a blanket letter to avoid any allegations of judgment or unfairness.

Unfortunately, poor attendance is not only statistically correlated with poor outcomes, it is a causative factor.

You can look at two schools with similar demographics and the one which really emphasises attendance gets better results.

Yes, you cannot drill this down to every pupil. Parents who are both teachers taking their child in term time to Florence for an educational holiday and making them catch up on all their other subjects clearly won’t cause the pupil to suffer academically.

But the government and schools can’t have one policy for the educated middle classes and one for the ‘unwashed proles’ (as a PP effectively suggested in more polite and floral language), although they kind of do via private schools (which nearly always authorise absence).

Realistically, if you do want your child to have additional absence and have a good reason, just pay the relatively small fine. Many do this for in-term holidays and still save a ton of money. As long as you don’t throw the onus for your child to catch up back on to the school, I don’t think it is a real problem.

And nothing to do with what a person said that if you don't attend school you will call in work sick.

Yep separate things

We paid privately for ed psych.
Report said support is needed didn't make a difference to what offered.

Not causing the other children and staff problems by kicking off at school does not equate being fine in school. It just means child isn't causing problems so being years behind their class (at reception level in year 5 for example) doesn't equate to child needing support.
The system is messed up. And the families and the child is paying the price.

It's easier to blame us than do what needs to be done. My child sitting in year 5 lessons doesn't do them any good when they would struggle to do the work in reception class. All this achieves is destroying their esteem and mental health.
This gets worse when there in year 8 and still can't add 2 +2

But carry on thinking your doing a Stella job ignoring these kids needs

A child who has medical appointments frequently for health issues and spends time in hospital for these issues is not the same as a child who is missing because they want to be hidden
It is not the same at all.
Parents of unwell children should not be targeted especially as those in genuine needs are ignored because we are the soft target

But we are the families being targeted. Countless examples on here.
If I have surgery with GA my employer wouldn't expect me in school the next morning. I had a head on the phone telling me my child being off school was unacceptable as they could look after the child the same as me.
This was the following morning from surgery even if this had been a minor Surgery (tooth extraction for example) but done under GA this isn't acceptable and goes against medical advise.

"But carry on thinking you're doing a Stella job ignoring these kids needs."

There's no need to be an arse. I've spent a lot of time on this thread trying to be helpful and explain the school's pov. Not to defend, but to explain. No teacher thinks they're doing a stellar job supporting SEND. We know the limitations. Many of us have children with SEND ourselves and understand the frustration.

The parents of 'quick wins' are being targeted as schools know they can improve their overall stats more easily by focussing on low hanging fruits. They report on attendance as a whole school figure.

It's much easier to get a parent who is on the cusp of persistant absence to modify their behaviour, than one whose child is at 60% attendance.

You can persaude them not to have a term time holiday, far more easily than persaude an autistic chikd in the totally wrong environment that school is safe.

It's also much easier to persaude a child with a cold to come in, than get a child from a chaotic home in.

"Parents of unwell children should not be targeted especially as those in genuine needs are ignored because we are the soft target."

You are not targeted. It is a blanket policy so that people do not feel judgment, shame or stigma. Everyone gets the same treatment. You might be more likely to respond by calling us than the family still high from the night before, but that's not the same as targeted.

"But we are the families being targeted. Countless examples on here. "

I think mn is just more likely to be caring mothers who perceive the letter as unfair because their child was genuinely ill. In rl those families are a minority % of letter recipients in any school.

"Not causing the other children and staff problems by kicking off at school does not equate being fine in school. It just means child isn't causing problems so being years behind their class (at reception level in year 5 for example) doesn't equate to child needing support. "

A child that is 5 years behind peers should definitely have support and would at every school I've worked at. It might not be as many hours as the parent wants, particularly if support has been monitored over a period and has had little impact, but certainly some support yes I agree.