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?

"I think that if you actually spent time trying to understand the families you would discover that families are at breaking point because the school system is not supporting the child's needs and in many cases damaging the child mental health."

I always ask the parents exactly what they want and deliver it.

The following week, it has failed and the child needs something else.

The following week, the new plan fails and the child needs something else.

I have found this to be a good way to keep the parents on side, as they realise that it is not 'school' but more complex than that.

We could give them their own classroom, a 1:1 adult and allow them to follow their interests - but it would still fail because it is not home.

School is the first to go but later the child will move on to rejecting hobbies, then friends, then their own family in favour of their bedroom.

It is more complicated than 'school is boring' or 'school don't meet his needs'.

Wow you sound perfect. If you really do this. How does this get financed? Where does the money come from to enable this.

Often we as parents are asked what we want and in general we don't know the answer so we suggest things that may or may not work.

What is your answer?

In my mind it fails because the system doesn't work and the sticking plasters are a short term fix but nothing really.changes

Attendance IS important. Attendance for attendance sake, is not.

Attendance should be a metric used to assess effectiveness of the school in terms of support for children, engagement of the wider family etc - ie 95% attendance school wide is a sign that things are going well, families are supportive of the school and vice versa etc and lower attendance is a sign that perhaps there are problems or gaps. Instead, it's become a goal in itself.

The result is that attendance becomes the fault of the families rather than the school taking responsibility and thinking, "what can we do to get these children back into school".

The reality is that a lot of chidlren are not attending school because their needs aren't being met. Others are not attending school because their families don't see the value. Others because they can't meet the standards the school has set - from uniform to timings to homework etc. There are wider issues at both the school and societal level if we want to solve for this problem.

For example, I know a woman who took her child out of school for the last two weeks of a term once... because she couldn't afford to buy him new school shoes and she didn't want to buy them at the end of the summer term anyway if his feet were going to grow but he kept getting detention for not having the right shoes. So she just stopped making him go.

It's a bigger issue. Attendance does impact grades, that is a fact. Schools are judged on grades. Get rid of that grading and attendance becomes less of an issue.

The whole system needs an overhaul. I currently work with SEND/SEMH students and there is a lack of understanding as to why they can

Oh bigger pressed send

Lack of understanding as to why the struggle to attend and the anxiety it causes. We need to have schools given a rounded and relevant education to start and then build from there.

There are loads of kids who miss too much school and there are a myriad of reasons for it.

My DD had one day off sick early in the first term of this year and I guess because it was so early in the year the percentage of time out was artificially high. She has an average of 2 days off per academic year usually. So the school wasted their admin time sending me a snotty auto filled email asking me to buck up my ideas, which I then wasted my time responding to in v patronising tones. Whereas there are families whose children don't attend for vast swathes of times. Surely the interventions should be targeted and focused on these families?

This is spot on.

I think people don't quite realise how bad the attendance issue is. Its not a few kids, missing a few days. Its nearly 20% of all school kids, missing 10% or MORE of the school days. 10% isn't just a handful of sick days.... Its nearly 20 days a year?! Imagine how much a child learns in 20 full school days. Thats probably over 100 hours of learning missed, and that's 1 in 5 children. And people think there isn't really an issue 🤔

Source: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/pupil-absence-in-schools-in-england

@Laundryliar

The issue is some children miss over 20.days a year just with hospital appointments.
Nothing is done to support these families and the children missing learning isn't supported.

Totally out of families hands and stressing them and making them feel guilty about lost learning while doing nothing to address this missed learning.
So either the missed learning matters and support should be put in place for the children with medical needs that miss through no fault.of their own or it doesn't matter and this is just a control tactic

A medical appointment, with associated letter, does not go down as an unauthorised absence. I know a couple of chronically unwell children whose schools absolutely are not pressuring them over absences due to repeat medical appointments.
I think we all know that's not the issue. The issue is the parent who keeps their child off school the whole day, for a 1hr medical appointment. And the parents keeping their kids off on a fri regularly, because it's their day off, and just generally having a poor attitude to school attendance.
You can have 95% attendance and thats seen as acceptable - you can miss 9 full days of school and still have 95% attendance. 9 full days is an awful lot. Normal healthy children who dont have a chronic condition are not generally SO unwell they cant get to school for 9 days every year.

Of course it relevent. My child missing due to medical appointments still misses the learning that day. It's not some magical loop hole that the child magically absorbs that knowledge.
We still get attendance warning letters.

What we don't get is any support to make up list learning or any understanding that child is struggling. We just get told to have them in more.

As if we can just wave a wand and solve all the medical issues. Or make the hospital move closer, appointment out of term.time etc

Authorised absence still triggers attendance letters and fines

My DS is on amber for attendance due to being in hospital earlier this year. Short of disconnecting his drip and probably putting him in a wheelchair back to school I couldn't have done anything, it is out of my control. They'll probably be given time off for watching football in the next week or so which is a total pisstake after banging on about minutes matter all year.

Our council website states fines are only for unauthorised absence.

https://educationhub.blog.gov.uk/2024/02/29/fines-for-parents-for-taking-children-out-of-school-what-you-need-to-know/
This govt article states 89% of fines for unauthorised absence are for term time holidays.
I know people are determined that the issue is chronically ill children beng fined for being sick - can you provide some evidence that a high percentage of absence is authorised, and due to illness?

I do agree however that for these children there should be better support to catch up learning that has been missed due for reasons they can do nothing about. I just think that actually this is a tiny tiny minority.

For me the issue is that its the same rules for GSCE years as for primary.

I took my daughter out for 2 days before May half term so we could get a better flight. Those two days, one afternoon was the class treat, and the day before as the school talent show (which she didn't want to enter). So the loss of learning was absolutely negligible. But she's year 4.

Her loss of school time is absolutely not comparable to a 16 year old doing their exams.

Shes lost more days at school due to hurricaines/snow, school strikes, lockdown and the concrete issue in school buildings.

I just dont get why they cant be flexible - you can take your kid out for a max 4 days, but only before year 5 and preferably only ever other year.

I feel like it's the measurement rather than the attendance which is the issue - it needs to be about absence with a genuine reason (ie illness, school trips) and absence due to disengagement- ie I remember a thread on here once where loads of parents were saying they would take their child out of school on their Birthday - which just (to me) shows a complete lack of respect for their education.

I'm sure when I went to school this was all more nuanced than it is now. I hate the focus on figures when there is so much underneath it that needs to be explained before deciding what is good and bad.

When our children were at school some years ago we were spared these complications so I am surprised how this thread has been taken over by concern about SEN or other conditions. We only had straight truancy with one or two children who ran off or didn't turn up.
Is it to backward of me to ask if we have reached the limits of inclusion of ALL children in a mixed class?

Part of this is one of the school’s metrics that OFSTED use is overall attendance, so governors put a lot of pressure on heads to increase it.

And heads respond with (at least semi) automated solutions such as warning letters when attendance drops below a certain level. This really annoys parents, especially when they are worried about a child due to a medical condition.

Generally, lack of attendance goes nowhere other than generating paperwork. I got one of these letters when my son had a concerning medical condition in Year 7 and needed lots of scans etc, some 90 minutes drive away. I emailed the school asking them to reverse the letter; they ignored me. I demanded an in-person meeting with the form teacher and head. Suddenly a real person got involved and I received a fulsome apology.

I don’t think you can avoid having attendance as a school target, as it does, at school level, massively impact outcomes. OTOH. as a parent, the best thing is to just ignore the automated letters, until they threaten a meaningful consequence (which rarely happens). If it does, just demand a face-to-face meeting and go in with plenty of evidence.

Your council isn't going to the same as other councils. It's also a moot point.
I haven't actually been fined but I have had the stress of fines being mentioned. I have had the letters about child's attendance. I have seen the school posts about missed learning impacting outcomes. All.of which causes undue stress
I have seen people being told to prove the child.is ill. As in parents are not to believed. Parents are not to be trusted. While doctors will not do letters for children as a general rule. Often parents who do manage to gets letters have to pay for these. Additional costs when having a child with medical needs already reduces income and up costs.

It isn't right.

I had to give up a career I loved because of not being able to rely on child being able to attend school and I couldn't continue to cancel work at last minute.

I'm on support groups and my experience isn't isolated it is far too common

School routinely class mental illness and SEN issues with attending school as unauthorised absence when it actually should be authorised as illness.

They routinely ignore DofE advice and medical evidence presented by parents.

If you want more information on this, join the group Not Fine in School on Facebook. I'm sure posters on there would be pleased to fill you in.

Yes inclusion policy is failing the most vulnerable and isn't working for the majority either

Part of the problem is that so much time, effort, and resource would be needed to genuinely dig into every absence, examine any underlying issues and work with the family and support services to improve things.

In the absence of any of this time and resource (not the schools’ choice or fault), blanket policies and automated letters are the default.

It's really hard on families with close family abroad, and it's really hard on children who are genuinely (for whatever reason) often off sick. But attendance is a really important welfare flag that was catastrophically ignored in various well-known tragic local authority safeguarding fails and I support them tracking it - even if it was infuriating when we got a stern letter about attendance when they knew my kid had been off for eight days with chickenpox.

@Againlosinghope Thanks, is there any possibility of change? Any will for it? It would cost more I suppose.

"Wow you sound perfect. If you really do this. How does this get financed? Where does the money come from to enable this.

Often we as parents are asked what we want and in general we don't know the answer so we suggest things that may or may not work.

What is your answer?

In my mind it fails because the system doesn't work and the sticking plasters are a short term fix but nothing really.changes."

It doesn't cost anything to make adjustments such as flexible start times, personalised learning in some lessons, safe spaces, regular breaks, exemption from specific activities, different uniform expectations, different playtime, different entrance/exit, carefully considered seating etc and we routinely offer a wide range of interventions.

TA support is harder and you do have to be creative there.

But fundamentally, for many kids, what they find intolerable is 'being in a building with hundreds of other children' and there's just nothing we can do about that.

Or sometimes parents are very worried about what is pushing them away from school, when the child is telling us that the main issue is actually all the things pulling them home - worry about a parent, not liking to be seen by other people, wanting to stay in bed or game.

I'm not saying that's a parent's fault btw. But it is not always 'what are school going to do about this.'

We usually have months of 'what are school doing about this' before parents realise for themselves that we have actually tried everything they or their child wanted and it didn't work because it was never the true problem in the first place.