Does your primary school do this? Home visit on Day 3 of illness

[Moonshinebaby]

So my son (4 years) is off with chicken pox at the moment. This is his 3rd day of illness.

Since he's started reception in September, he's only had 2 previous sick days due to vomiting.

It's in the school's policy that they will visit a child on the 3rd day of sickness.

I thought they are bluffing, but they actually have just been around.

The lady said that it has nothing to do with my parenting, but that they need to do spot checks.

I asked and they said there are a few cases of chickenpox at the school at the moment.

Does your primary school do this?

But why does that matter? He's not yet of compulsory school age.

Attendance figures are irrelevant in this case - the child is not yet of compulsory school age.

Of course it matters when it comes to safe guarding. He’s supposed to be a certain place at a certain time and has a relatively high percentage of absences compared to his peers. It would be irresponsible to not perform a welfare check in these circumstances. A welfare check is not an accusation, it’s a confirmation that every thing is as it should be.

What did you say to them?

Yes but studies show if attendance is bad in EYFS, children tend to have bad attendance throughout their school life so think it is a nip it in the bud type scenario

I would love to see the evidence that has been used to support these policies.

I'm sure there is the rare case but I would be pretty surprised if well, achieving, supported child with no previous child protection concerns and attendance >96% would be particularly at risk of abuse with 3 days absence for a documented contagious disease such as chicken pox where it would be entirely likely that said child would need 5 days off school.

Sara Sharif had significant social services input from allegations of physical abuse from both her mother and her father from a very early age. Her father was also known to the police for numerous violent incidents towards women and children.

Considering how many children are long term absent for so many reasons and the fact schools are drowning with the child protection cases they have I can't see any benefit to spending money to have staff chapping doors of very low risk pupils who have called in with a very expected contagious disease for that age with a very reasonable time frame. I would be quite annoyed with a visit to my door in those circumstances.

Why would a child be deemed safe unchecked for six weeks over summer, but potentially unsafe unchecked for three days in term time?

Typical useless measure that achieves nothing. While there are very little resources to help kids at very obvious risk and already on social services radar.
I have never had this and would roll my eyes if someone had the time to drive the 40 km to our house and the 40 km back to school just to check on my daughter´s chicken pox spots!

We're in walking distance of school (about 8 minutes). They came in a car, so maybe they are visiting several families?

Seems optimistic to think this would nip it in the bud. Any parent so minded can refuse entry and/or lie. Sending a school staff member with no right of entry round isn't going to change that.

Never heard of this. DD has had two full weeks off at different times, once with chicken pox once while she was in hospital. Our school seems very sensible and pragmatic about attendance and illness.

my dc school doesn’t and they are not pushy about sickness luckily. If they turned up at mine, I wouldn’t actually answer the door anyway so they would probably assume we were on holiday!

No but schools have to do something l guess? Can't just leave it?

Hmmm, I'd say 'just leaving' a child with reported chicken pox on their 3rd day of sickness is very much an option.

I'm at a secondary and we would do a home visit if there were safeguarding concerns or we couldn’t get hold of a parent. Typically after 3 days our attendance officer asks to speak to the child on the phone as a welfare check.

Are these two people employed by the school directly or are they from the LEA? I know there's an underlying important reason for doing the checks, but my mind automatically goes to thinking that those wages could be used to fund one other teacher at least.

We have to report the abscence every morning before 8:50 am on an app.

The 3 day home visit happens even if abscence is reported.

If abscene wasn't reported, an immediate phone call would take place. If nobody answered the phone, an immediate home visit would take place. If nobody answered the door, the police would be called.

No ours doesn't and my youngest has been off a fair bit already this term.

Thats a bit much. My dh took unwell again so the youngest missed nursery as we were at the hospital. They phoned me once and I didn't answer and they didn't try again. I did email them about 6pm that night when I was finally home.

On the other hand I had nursery staff turn up at my door one day when I hadn't answered the phone when I was sleeping after a night shift as my oldest was ill. They didn't bother to try her dad. Just me then came to door. I was 20 weeks pregnant and as I said nightshift.

This is ridiculous. What if the child had an accident and was at the hospital? I'm sure there are plenty of other reasonable explanations as to why a child would be absent and the parents hadn't immediately contacted the school. And what would the police do? I'm sure they have more pressing issues?

I don't think you understood what my point was. It is completely illogical to have a blanket rule that every child who is off school sick for 3 days (which is probably all school-attending children at some point) must be seen by a member of school staff because 'safeguarding' but it is perfectly fine for no professional to see them throughout the school holidays when absolutely anything could be happening to that child. It is completely inconsistent and does make it seem that the focus is more about attendance figures than safeguarding.

If a child is known to be at risk of harm, or the school has genuine reason to believe that the child may be in danger then that is a different matter.

No ours don't, my daughter has had about 10 days off since September (she's in reception) due to various illnesses and they've not visited once

Police?
I know plenty of parents who call in sick but go on holiday. Most come back to 3-5 hand delivered letters. They just kept turning up to check if anyone's in.

My primary school never did this. I was off school for a week with chicken pox and the school accepted it without question. I can remember having a few days off when my mum had pneumonia and the school were fine about it. I was lucky though as i rarely got ill enough to miss school after i had my tonsils out. It is also 20 years since i was in school.

Our school do this as well, from day 3, although might be day 4/5. Similar to a PP it’s usually an attendance/welfare officer, and another support worker. Perhaps it is more common in schools with lower attendance in general, as they tend to be more likely to have attendance/welfare staff.