To think the Ofsted inspector who blames WFH parents for low attendance is probably just resentful?

[JandamiHash]

The Chief Inspector of Ofsted is blaming parents who WFH for the demise of school attendance https://www.itv.com/news/2025-02-16/parents-working-from-home-makes-children-feel-school-is-optional-ofsted-head?fbclid=IwZXh0bgNhZW0CMTEAAR0ULgukQnTsabNTlcJRBI4kVQsMYkhCPK_KA4lUAgVkxOocYfo3onmRNHU_aem_nuBknA_QEGgfA93CaTPagg. Apparently none of us want to take our slippers off so we let our kids stay at home while we work.

He makes some REALLY weird points like his overworked dad he didn’t see much as his inspiration to go to school. And also MPs making sure they spend weekends with their families is a bad work ethic.

I know MN is a good example of whenever WFH threads are brought up, non-WFHers come on dripping with resentment over WFH and implying WFHers don’t really work. AIBU to think this man - who has somehow been knighted - is basically doing that? I’m not sure how much inspecting he does now, but Ofsted inspectors aren’t any superior or harder working just because they spend a few days working away from home at a time (something BTW I’m expected to do, at least 1 overnight a month).

Also as someone from a household where 2 of us WFH, I can’t think of anything worse than having kids flapping around us while we try and work. I’m FT, and this week I’m off Weds-Fri, as is DH. my DD11 will be at home tomorrow with strict instructions to keep away unless there’s a serious emergency (she’s secondary and old enough to take care of herself) and at a friend’s on Tuesday. My DS is 8 and is going into a holiday club tomorrow and Tuesday as his neediness is unbearable. Both have somewhere between 97 and 99% attendance so far this academic year.

YABU - “He’s got a point”
YANBU - “He’s wrong/resentful”

Perfectly acceptable for the school to bully the mother and reduce her to tears though. The mother gave me permission to talk to the school about her child's health after I offered to do so. I did suggest to her that she mention this to the pharmacist and see if he would speak to the school but I was served shortly afterwards and left.

I don't think he sounds resentful. He doesn't think it's unfair people are working from home, but that he views his father and his own ways of working as superior examples for children and kids seeing adults go out to work would somehow increase attendance rates. That's where his (or possibly the writer of the article) argument falls down.

It's quite possible the increase in WFH is one of many factors, particularly in the way others brought up around illnesses, but the idea that it's a major factor has little backing it up. There is no acknowledgement that children have had parents who work patterns that do not line up with the school day well before this increase. Parents who work nights & so are in bed while kids are in school, parents who work shifts or professions that for many years worked compressed hours or shorter weeks, jobs where work is more ad-hoc, as well are those who have parents or other carers who don't work at all or the opposite and the far more traditional form of work where it's in the household and there is no separation of work and the rest of life.

Having worked from home and in the last year changed careers intentionally to work outside of it, I think the refrain that those who don't work at home are resentful or jealous of those that do is unhelpful.

Shame he doesn’t mention the fact so many low income families are persistently absent

He may have mentioned that and many other things didn't make it into the article. The Telegraph has played a part in the push back to the office so we have to take the lean of the article with a few pinches of salt.

Yes, I was agreeing that there probably is a link. I didn’t take any pleasure in sending my ill children to school, I’m much happier now they can stay off with me when they need to.

The PP above makes a good point though, that a couple of generations ago, SAHM were the norm so that contradicts the argument

I agree, we have a new head who seems to think parents are really titillated by a weekly competition over absence dates in the newsletter. “Well done to year 4 who had the highest attendance this week!”. Why are you congratulating children on not being sick? It’s just weird. And parents just think this is weird.

I’m speaking as someone with a son who has a chronic condition whose attendance rate is good this year but by the grace of having a spell of good health. Other years before he had certain support and treatment it’s been poor and I hate that he’s punished for something he can’t help. although I’m pretty hardy with going into school - he has to be VERY bad before he gets time off.

Oh wise up. OP is not publishing a scientific journal. She formed an opinion about an article she read, doesn't matter if it's just a snippet. She doesn't need to read the whole article to be entitled to an opinion.

Weird you are so outraged by OP sharing her thoughts yet have no issue with the opinions expressed in the initial article not being supported by any actual data.

Nope they didn't. They expected kids who were ill to stay at home. They factored in that attendance would be lower.

@Ankhmo but there’s ill and there’s ill. All of us keep our kids off school if they’re really unwell, but some people define “unwell” as having a cold. DS has a happy, sporty, bright NT friend whose mum frequently keeps him off “because he was a bit emotional last night”. She works from home.

Is the issue kids being sent in by parents when they shouldn't, or kids being kept off by parents who are WFH so can facilitate kids being home appropriately!?

Has this guy looked at the difference?!

When I read the article this morning 70% of Times readers who had taken part in the poll agreed with him.

Schools are obsessed with attendance because they are judged on it and incentivised to do basically anything to increase it. In secondary the high correlation between high attendance and good results on exams, as well as low attendance and anti-social behaviour outside of school are both significant reasons why they're judged and incentivised to do so.

OFSTED and similar treat high attendance as major indicator that the kids want to be there and the school is doing things right. The difference between attendance of different demographics is used to indicate how well and fairly different groups are treated. It's a quantitative hammer used to indicate many qualitative things, some that are only loosely connected.

The main article is very nuanced.

The snapshot available via the OPs link has been abridged and sensationalised.

Spot on

I don’t read the Times or particularly care (or know) which way newspapers lean but some on this thread have said The Times are having a big push back towards going back to the office. So probably pitching to their demographic

I like a hybrid work pattern, but I tend to do more office days than home days now. While wfh I hate that I really ought to do things like laundry and prefer being ‘at work’ for better sharing of the household load (I don’t have less to do just because I am at home). I do like to wfh when I have lots of quiet work to do as I’m much more productive.

some people think the schooling system is the crowning jewel, you can learn better, quicker and smarter from home (granted not everyone but a good majority) do people forget the old days of Einstein, franklin, da Vinci etc teaching themselves

I do think there is a correlation. This is not to blame parents, but we all have to work to live these days. I used to have to sit with my DD for almost three hours sometimes when she was too anxious to go into school. It was sometimes 1 hour, sometimes 2. It made work almost impossibly and if I didn't have a flexible employer I would have lost my job. I had a policy that I would always get her into the school building. This meant sometimes she would cry the whole time walking there.
It was a hugely exhausting and stressful situation. But she did get over it, and comes in every day now.
I don't think that the children who didn't make it in were any more or less distressed or anxious than my daughter. The parents just couldn't sit there for six hours a week trying to get their child back to baseline in the school reception area.
I could have let her stay at home. I could have logged onto a morning meeting as many do, called school and said that she was too upset to come in. And there are many reasons why parents might do that. They might lose their jobs/ homes if they don't log into those morning meetings. They might have their own health or mental health reasons for why they can't sit there each day whilst their child cries, screams, hits you, bites you, runs away and headbangs.
But I couldn't lose my job. I am a sole parent, only breadwinner. And my job has to be done in a hospital. If I could WFH.
My motivation to get my daughter in was fuelled by my need to get to work every day to earn money for us to live. If I had a WFH job, I would have been able to let her stay home. But would I have ever got her back in?
The parents who let their children stay home who I stay in contact with, by and large their children are not in education at all now.

they may agree on the basis of how it sounds unless those that agree have done and read the research, plus excatly how many people is that to get the 70% because eg 10 people asked 7 agree = 70%

Whilst it may not be the main cause of low school attendance, it’s pretty obvious that it’s easier to have a child at home if parents WFH vs working away from home.

If at 7am your child says they don’t feel well, it’s a hell of a lot easier to say “OK but you’ll have to be quiet while I work” than to figure out who the hell will look after your kid while you travel 30 miles away to an office for 8 hours!

Every working parent has done the hopeful calpol thing, then anxiously jumped each time their phone rings. If you worked from home, you’d have less need to dose them up and send them in.

The last thing I need when WFH are the blooming kids there. Mine go into school regardless of how ill they are, their teacher can send them home if needed 🤷‍♀️

Do you think Einstein was a typical child? 😂

@Kiwi83 but where would the teacher send them if you didn’t WFH?

they all had to start somewhere, no one is auto a genius, it takes will power, Self discipline to focus on your studies, and commitment

@Cupcakes2035 and how does a parent nurture that whilst working full time from home? Plonking a child infront of a text book would rarely work with the majority of children.

If you go onto the Facebook group Not Fine in School you will see examples of parents desperately trying anything to get their kids to go to school whether they are single parents or not and whether their job is home based or not. And many lose their jobs because of school refusal in spite of their best efforts. I'm glad you were able to keep your daughter in school, but it doesn't mean those methods you describe work for everyone or that they haven't bothered trying.

its down to the individual themselves to learn thats why i used Einstein, etc you can lead a horse to water, plus if they are not focused at home how will being at school be any different