To think the school are breaking their own policy...

[SoBloodyAwkward]

Because they put the 2 days my dc was off as unauthorised without telling me.

My dc has 92% attendance, below 90.1 is in in the red, above that is in the yellow, above 96 is in the green. My dc is yellow. We have been plaqued with illness, a bereavement etc this school year, the school are well aware, and we have explained in detail in writing the reasons to the attendance officer who was fine at the time, and didn't give a letter. All dc's previous attendances have been authorised, and for things that she couldn't come into school with, required doctors visits, things like chicken pox etc. I don't keep her off for minor colds, and things she could come in with. We always ring in, explain, and make medical apps outside of school hours where possible, don't take holidays in school time etc. Minusing off the bereavement, and the minor reasons the school themselves sent her home, the attendance percentage would go up a little too. Without those, the attendance certainly isn't irratic, or anything either.

Last weekend dd got really unwell with a fever, wasn't eating, Monday morning raging sore throat, white in back, headache and chills. I rang school as soon as the lines opened to inform, took her to the GP, who gave antibiotics. I checked the app, and saw that the school had put her down as unauthorised. I rang up to ask why they had done this. The woman said "how do you know it is unauthorised", I said I have seen it on the app." She transferred me through to somebody else who said they gad told the attendance officer it was strep, has she been off before, I said yes, but not unauthorised, she said they would change it. They didn't, and proceeded to put her down as unauthorised on Tuesday too.

I sent them a lengthy email with pictures of the antibiotics gp label, explaining it all, contagious until 24 hours after antibiotics started, etc. They finally changed both days to authorised, I took the medicine down to the main office as they are administrating to dd every lunch time.

I sent a complaint through querying their policy, asking why they hadn't informed me it was put down as unauthorised, why they hadn't given me the opportunity to supply the evidence they clearly required. I also queried why this was suddenly happening on the final week, when dd had been in all term, and 100% attendance certificate received for this. They have never marked her as this before. All they said was "we sent you a 2nd letter saying all future absences would be unauthorised." I told them i havent received tbis mysterious letter, and can they send it through to me, they have failed to provide it. How can they do this, when they haven't asked for evidence? Her attendance isn't even in the red! She is 7yrs old, and in year 2.

Surely this cannot be right? Have they penalised us because of the football on Sunday, and it being the last week?

Thank you for your kind words. I wish it was that simple. They're bringing fines in next year for unauthorised absences, so this sort of thing could affect alot of parents. Acouple of posters described the implications really well further up thread. I wish it was like the past, my primary school was nothing like this, I'm sure there must have been a whole host of other issues though!

Thank you so much for your replies, and useful information. I will check this out, it does very much feel like they make their own rules up at times, and you cannot win, no matter what you do. They sent dd home for spitting up the tinest anount of sick (during PE straight after lunch). They told me she would have to stay off for 48 hours after her last symptom. They wouldn't let me bring her in on day 2, despite me telling them it was reflux. She was absolutely fine. On another occasion, they sent her home for trapped wind, you cannot make it up with this school. Yet all of these occasions they will label as irratic attendance, but if you minus those off, it isn't at all.

It is a state school as well. It is supposed to be the best of the three in our area. I'm not sure if it will be for much longer. Some of their good teachers are starting to leave, go on the sick etc, it is awful, and so sad. I am really pleased your DCs got into a better school after that; it is soul destroying to see your DCs who already have extra daily challenges to suffer even further unnecessarily. That must have been so very stressful for you, and your family.

Exactly, they talk about child welfare and MH, yet jeopardise it. They don't relax their rules and will ignore parts of dd's pupil passport when convenient. They still time her handwriting and keep her behind missing some of her play/lunch time for being too slow at it. Certain staff members shout at her for not saying on task, not listening, and daydreaming. She honestly can not help it.

I am really pleased dd has a good teacher in year 3 (who hasn't left yet), and hopefully that will make a difference. There is also a new deputy head for KS2, thank goodness.

This has happened to DS this year. He had a great term 1 and into term 2, then picked up a cold that turned into a prolonged hacking cough that triggered his asthma to the extent that I got him into school one morning then had to 999. As that flare-up involving steroids finally calmed down, he then ended up with an abdominal pain that resulted in emergency surgery within 8 hours of presenting at A&E. With a bit of TLC he was back in school the following week, but his attendance was a little bit erratic as he recovered as he then required anti-biotics, then had a further side effect from the anti-biotics within the month following the surgery. Once he was fully recovered, he's been back to full attendance other than one bout of vomiting where I had the audacity to follow the school's 48 hour policy.

He's been marked unauthorised for vomiting and some of that post-surgery phase.
Like fuck am I going to attempt to waste a moment of NHS time over a random vomiting bug.
Annoyingly, I didn't know that the post-antibiotics phase had been marked unauthorised until sometime after I'd binned the tablet packaging.

The school know I have gone above and beyond to get him into school as much as is possible. I have literally carried him in- he's nearly as tall as me! It's insulting that genuine illness that a GP would have sick-noted for an adult, or fallen under self-cert have been declared to be unauthorised by the school. In 7 years, he has never been off for a spurious reason, and most years has been 99-100% attendance as was his sibling before him.

The only reason that I haven't kicked up a fuss is that he's moving on to a school that has been more reasonable when DC1 had a rough few months of catching everything going every few weeks in his first few months post-Covid.

Despite his 87% attendance, he's performed really well this school year, met all his targets and finally caught up to where he should have been after all the Covid disruption when he was denied an accessible education for 6 months across two school years.

It's galling to be classed as unauthorised for being ill 3 years after being denied the right to go to school for 2 months and having him sobbing on my lap daily through Teams lessons, and classing him as unauthorised doesn't magically restore good health.

If EWO got involved, there's plenty of NHS information that his attendance level was justified.

All these people saying it doesn't matter... if it doesn't matter then why don't they just record it accurately as authorised?

To get a criminal record you need to be charged and found guilty. That's the time to present evidence / appeal.

You can also appeal against fines.

OP - the ND charity websites have some good advice about strategies to stop catastrophising. Would it be helpful to go through them with your DD and reassure her that this is annoying, but will be OK?

It's a day or so til end of term. The school office will be so fucking busy they can barely think straight. It's the absolute busiest time of year. Some poor sod has made an error and instead of just letting them know and checking in Sept it's been corrected you have delighted in emailing, ringing, demanding apologies etc etc
Ffs get a grip and let them do the important work they need to do

Yes, but it only tells me the percentage of attendance. I have asked for the data of exactly what days are unauthorised and they won't tell me!

That's awful, to have attendance up like that. They're kids, it's not like they have any control over their attendance. DS had 9.5 days off over the year, marked as "unacceptable" on his report card. Fine, whatever. But displaying this to the kids is surely opening them up to bullying if you do a y kind of reward system for attendance

So i agree they shouod say before putting unauthorised.
I had similar yeads ago dc was off 5 dats with d&v they put all as unauth and changed it when i queried. It was just before a half term. My dc seem prone to it

But op with fining i would just assume now they do want proof so automstically send them prescriptions or appt cards etc. Or even maybe keep photos of dc each day they are off so its dated (ideally with a newpaper etc)
As presumably the concern is more that kods are off on holiday than that they are having several duvet days.

Even with threats of fines i still know parents keeping kids off when they may be a bit tired.

But we basically lost 10 days of holiday when dc went to secondary because 0 days inset match primary.

Personally if i were gov i would scale up the unauthorised so fines are 0 up to ks2. With ks2 a lowish amount but mych higher for secondary, as several classmates were off last day of term

But within this school need to teach up until at leasta last day of term each term

It’s really not an issue. Leave it. School’s have enough important stuff to do.

It kind of is, the implications for unauthorised attendance are with the new guidelines fairly huge and the school should be authorising this with the evidence they have been given and aren’t following the guidance properly

Schools can't just do as they please and blame it on all the 'important stuff they have to do.' I have important stuff to do in my job I still have to follow policies.