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?

In the real world it’s pretty damn difficult to get any support even for those with serious and well documented needs. Look at the people who can’t get DLA despite being in a wheelchair or housebound or stage 4 cancer.

If it’s too costly or not practically do-able to make adjustments then all a workplace has to do is say they tried but it’s not possible.

Plenty of jobs have very strict uniform, often due to health & safety, and they absolutely will make you leave if you refuse to wear it.
Many jobs make you clock in and out to know exactly the hours you are there.
The school uniform has 2 main purposes - one to attempt to make all pupils feel equal and like they belong. Two - to easily identify pupils (and kids who aren’t pupils) both inside the school and outside.
Most schools have a fairly reasonable uniform policy of ‘school colours’ for sweatshirt and black trousers, maybe a badge. Only know of one school in the city I work in where they penalise pupils about things like shoe colour - and that’s the ‘best’ school with a very long list for places.

Also the jobs that have uniform is linked to a purpose. MacDonald for example.

1. Uniform just for work

A your personal clothes don't stink B work clothes clean just for work hygiene purpose C. Hair nets etc to protect the food hygiene

1. Identity - easy for colleagues and customers to identify who works there
2. Cost. Work uniform is provided free.of charge where as school.uniform is usually very expensive and paid for by the family

One of the major issues is the distorted holiday prices.

I think it needs legislation that holiday companies cannot charge such extortionate prices in the holidays. It makes it impossible for families to take them in school breaks (and it's a mare for teachers too who have no choice either!).

Then you need to take a holistic look at each child and case. Kid with high attendance allowance year wants a week off early July for summer holiday, no problem off you go. Kid with health issues, no fines and just support them. Parent who lets kid have every Friday off cos they don't like PE (genuine conversation I had with a parent once) deserves the fines and hauling into a parenting class for their sheer laziness and lack of 🌰🌰.

Yes, I think it's more complicated. The "parents don't care" argument is a bit binary. It's a lot more nuanced. Those parents may well "not care" because they don't see the value - perhaps school never helped them (or that's what they think). Perhaps they feel like the contract has been broken (as has been mentioned on here a number of times) so there's an attitude of "well, why should I bother when the school/government/local authority doesn't give a flying fig about me?". Perhaps they "don't care" because the're prioritising other things like mental or physical health.

And I agree, if it's really that they just don't care, I think that's a sign of a much bigger problem in terms of not demonstrating how important education is. I suspect there was always a small group of this sort, but in the past, the language would have been, "well DS, you have to go to school but just suck it up for a few more years and it will be over" vs today which is "Nah, what are they going to do? Put you in jail? Don't bother". So the underlying problem is the same, but the response of the parents is different.

Oh yeah and I am wearing my work uniform right now so yeah, grown ups wear them too 🤷‍♀️

The reality is that there are jobs available that impose very different requirements on the holders than school attendance does on DC. Sure, there are some people who won't be able to cope with work at all as adults, and those people are probably over-represented amongst those who can't cope at school either.

But the world of work isn't just a continuation of school. There's enough difference between the two that you cannot simply assume someone who doesn't cope well in a school environment won't be able to do so in a job, especially with the rise in remote work.

I expect there is reason for the uniform in your job and not just because the manager decided everyone had to wear it just because.
Is your uniform provided or do you have to purchase it out of your own pocket? And does your employer specify where the item has to be purchased from even if the item is available cheeper else where

Is the "just suck it up for a few more years" model actually any better? Presenteeism isn't highly praised in any other arena.

I know this was definitely the approach when I was in high school and there were plenty of kids who came in because they had to be there, didn't engage with lessons, were disruptive and constantly in trouble and left with poor grades.

Most that I still hear about went straight into full time work from school and did well for themselves.

To me this suggests that their needs weren't being met by a quite rigid education system. That system has only got more rigid in the years since.

Changing holiday prices isn't realistic, unfortunately. Much of the pricing isn't even under the control of the UK government, since so many people travel abroad. People like to holiday, they're restricted in when they can go and so the market charges more.

Is the "just suck it up for a few more years" model actually any better? Presenteeism isn't highly praised in any other arena. @WasThatACorner

No, of course not. That was just a sub point of my broader comment that the "parents just don't care" argument is a whole lot more nuanced than people who use it like to think. In this case, specifically that there are a subset of parents who don't care because they dont' see the value and a) we need to solve for THAT problem and b) at least in the old days, the children still GOT an education even if their parents didn't see the value. Which again, means we have a bigger societal issue.

I suppose it depends what we mean by that subset and the good old days. It didn't used to be particularly uncommon for people to fail all their exams having not got a lot out of school, then go straight into work afterwards rather than doing any FE. It was common enough in the working class community where I grew up, and I know people who are still pretty young who that applied to. Was happening well into the noughties. They only really got an education in the widest sense of the term, ie they were mostly physically present whilst some education was being delivered.

All the 50,000 members of not fine in school are not swanning round on holidays. Most of them can only dream of a holiday as there kids are too unwell with school trauma to travel or they had to give up and income due to their child's illness and can't afford it.

Feckless parents and holidays are just the tiny top of the iceberg. They real reason is under the water and isn't being addressed by the press or the govt.

I understand what you're saying but I disagree that by just showing up those kids got an education.

Obviously, there are benefits to them showing up eg safeguarding concerns can be spotted and raised, less likely to be engaging in antisocial behaviour (in school hoirs) because they're bored, socialising with their peers. This doesn't equal getting an education though.

So.... was it actually any better from an education perspective than them just not showing up?

Not saying that those kids should just be left behind, I'm asking if perhaps the needs of these kids need could be met better in other ways and if the focus on attendance is clouding that issue.

DS has "poor attendance"
It was 100% until he was ill in January which then flared up his asthma to the extent that we had to 999 at school shortly after arriving. After a week struggling where everytime the front door was opened, we had a strategy where I could drive into the school site and use his reliever to settle him before he was ready to go to the classroom.

As soon as that calmed down he ended up having emergency surgery for something totally different. He went back to school with in a week, but wasn't on great form so his attendance was still ropey in the following month. Half of that has been marked unauthorised despite the fact it was all connected to surgery, infection needing anti-biotics and side effects from the anti-botics.

Then he vomited and he was unauthorised for having the audacity to follow the school's 48 hour policy. Am I now supposed to let him vomit in class and share the joy? I'm certainly not attempting to phone the GP x100 to get through and evidence such unnecessary trivia.

"Unauthorised attendance" has ceased to have any useful meaning to me.

Especially after the toll of the Covid years when he was prohibited from setting foot in a classroom for 6 months (4 +2), plus the 10 days isolation because a classmate had a cold. It's taken him years to catch up from that, and school has been unhelpful at identifying and supporting his learning difficulty.

Sending obnoxious letters doesn't magically make children fit and well to learn productively. I'd love for DS not to have gone through all that pain and distress!

Meanwhile his classmate doesn't have an appropriate school place for September.

Schools generally have a pretty good idea over whose attendance is about health, or safeguarding. The system of pissing parents of ill/ struggling children off as a tick box activity is not going to improve anything and just damages the relationship with school.

The system sucks and is unproductive.

Oh, couldn't agree more. I have been banging on and on, on this thread about attendance being a symptom rather than the problem in itself. And just hoping that forcing children to go to.achiol might give them an education is a pretty low bar and only a tiny but better than just not letting them attend at all.

DD will start Year 6 in September and she hasn't had a single day off sick since starting reception. Nothing but luck, she's just very rarely poorly and if she is it always seems to fall in a school holiday.

She has had time off for two family holidays in that time though so doubt we'll be getting a bike

No, but you also wont fatten it by skipping meals..

DS (now in his 20s) only had 3 days off in his entire school career. I have not been off work sick for a single day in the six years in my current job.

Congratulations 🎊

Ours are triggered at 95% attendances so that we can offer help before it gets worse.

We send them to everyone to avoid any perceived stigma and judgment, and so that we don't miss a family that needs help just because we think they don't.

I don't know why parents can't just apply a bit of critical thinking - an automated letter that they can ignore if their absences are genuine, short term and unavoidable.

Instead they're outraged and triggered by them, despite teachers telling you that they prompt some families to ask for help when they wouldn't otherwise.

There isn't one 'real world' is there?! It really depends on workplace, location, boss etc.. But unfortunately you get the flexibility you need by getting a good education and skills that give you options.

Kids need to do things that scare them, be punctual, follow rules they don't agree with at times etc... and a class of 30 cannot do something different for every child. My child has benefited hugely from school and from understanding things sometimes can't be negotiated or done his way.

But there's a limit. And if your child is disabled, ill or traumatised and no compromise or help is given that can't always be judged in the same way.

I agree with some of what you say here.

However, our education system has become more and more narrow in its focus. As schools rely on ratings to attract new parents, they focus on the areas that are being tested and other areas become neglected.

Some people will need good GCSE grades in order to do well in their chosen field. Others will excel in areas that rely more on soft skills and intuition such as customer service and caring roles.

In order to progress up the ladder they may need to go on and do further training but doing a specific training course in an area that you understand and do well is very different to drowning in many subjects that you don't. People (not just choldren) will learn when when they are motivated, feel valued and see a pathway to success. Schools don't meet these requirements for many children.

“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!)”

THIS 100%

Correlation does not equal causation.

And there will be a huge difference between children who have difficult home lives, with the wide range of issues that comes with, who ALSO don’t attend school, and the child with a generally stable home life, who has a few illnesses that year and/or whose parent wants to take them out for a week’s holiday, but who otherwise has good attendance.

Those stats will also be affected by SEN children.

The issue is that underfunding or withdrawal of support services for vulnerable families and SEND children, such as social services, Sure Start, CAMHS etc along with the push to save money by having more and more SEND children with higher and higher needs in mainstream schools which they struggle to cope with on less and less money, has led to these issues with poor attendance. But rather than deal with these issues the Tory government have done what they always do and blame and punish. I hope labour aren’t just going to follow suit and actually do something to tackle the underlying issues.

But sitting at home on their phones will also do f* all for kids who are disengaged, would you not say?