“No days off November”

[Quipto]

AIBU to think some schools have lost the plot over attendance? I think attendance awards are a lazy way of avoiding the myriad of reasons attendance is an issue, downplay serious issues, ignore the main reason for absence (illness) and discriminate against children with health conditions. This ‘no days off November’ when covid and flu are already kicking arse seems insane.

In schools, letters about attendance are automatically generated when the attendance dips below certain numbers. Schools can't do anything about that BUT it is up to the school whether they send it or not.
My DH has a child diagnosed with a cancer and although treatment is doing its job their attendance is obviously way below what it should be. That generated letter is not sent out. If college knows uour daughter's issues and stills sends the letter, and worse, threaten you with SS they're being arseholes. Obviously if SS came out there'd be no issue as your looking at medical appointments which your daughter needs, but you don't need that bloody hassle on top of everything you're dealing with!
A foster child if ours missed quite a bit of school. Attendance at one point was around 80%.
School were 'they need to be in'. I firmly pointed out that the trauma they had had, and were still going through, would have their staff signed off on sick if they were going through anything near similar. School would NOT be allowed to even phone them and ask why they were still off/demand they get back in. Since then we had a better relationship and luckily they had a great Head Of Year who REALLY got their needs. When we got attendance letters he'd call and say letter is on its way (he had no say if it was sent out) but we know and understand the issue so dont worry about it.

In primary school, children have very little control over whether they go to school or not. Not just from the point of view of illness or disability. If they have a parent who doesn't give a shit about taking them to school, OR a parent who cares deeply about education but believes in taking educational travel trips during termtime, there is nothing the child can do about it. Even with illness it's the parent who decides whether to send them to school with flu/d&v or keep them at home with a sniffle.

So any scheme that punishes or rewards primary children for attendance is unfair.

My dds friend in primary school always got attendance awards, never missed a single day. I don't believe she was never too ill for school. But her mum had a highpowered full time job and it would have been tricky to keep her home. Again this is nothing that the child should be rewarded for.

I was still teaching when attendance became a big thing from ofsted. It seemed to come on the back of Sats. Blunt correlation that schools with high attendance got higher SATs results so therefore bums on seats equals good results. Ignoring that this is only part of the picture. Ofsted put pressure on schools, schools put pressure on parents and children.

It's ridiculous and comes from government/OFSTED.

Similar in Finland. They track attendance and will raise concerns if there's a lot of absence but there's no prizes or treats related to attendance and no judgement when a child is off ill (they are expected to catch up with work though, if they're up to it, afterwards if they're not). DD was off a lot last year, claiming illness but was hard to tell if it was real or not. The school arranged counselling for her with the school counsellor, an appointment with the school psychologist, school nurse did a thorough check up and anaemia was diagnosed and she was referred to the optician and got glasses (i stupidly didn't connect her headaches with her eyes because she always passed vision tests but she has astigmatism and was compensating) though she doesn't bloody wear them, and her teacher was in touch with me throughout and very supportive. Her attendance got much better after that and is not too bad so far this year though a couple of bad colds have her down under 90% attendance.

On the other hand there's a boy in her year who misses more school than he attends so has been held back twice as he cannot pass 8th grade when he misses so much yet doesn't try to catch up.

You can only do support if you have money for support
you can only provide help for children to catch up if you have teachers with time to do so
it all costs
pretty sure Finland has higher taxation and wouldn’t surprise me if Ireland also

The catching up is mostly the responsibility of the children (for instance with my 1st grader, his teacher puts up each day on the class webpage which pages from which textbooks the children who are off need to do, and either a parent goes in to fetch the books or they get sent back with a classmate that lives nearby. My 8th grader is supposed to ask classmates what she missed and try to catch up herself), though with long term illness help will need to be provided or if they're really struggling to catch up. But support is quite well prioritised and is funded but at the expense of other things (don't have the extras like school productions, musical instrument lessons beyond what's in the normal music curriculum, very few school trips etc.)

Argh I HATE any kind of reward based system for attendance!

I KNOW attendance is important.

If you miss a lesson about...say... Photosynthesis... You'll never know as much about it as the kids who were in class that day...and it's a pain for the teachers.

BUT..

If you're a child who is healthy, and has good enough mental health to be ok to attend school every day THAT is the reward! Well done, you're ok!! You don't need a badge, or a chocolate bar to reward you for being healthy and ok.

Just be glad you aren't one of the children who has been ill!! Being ill is awful.

As for the people who take the "p" and just don't care whether their kid has a day off at the drop of a hat...I doubt this kind of person would ever be deterred by punishment or spurred on by the idea of a reward...they will do as they please.

It was noticeable when my DD was in primary that the children regularly kept off just because (tired because he didn't sleep well, looked a bit peaky etc.) had SAHMs. Obviously when DD was genuinely ill we kept her off and either me or DH would arrange a day off or to work from home. Neither of us was the default parent, we decided based on whose day could accommodate it best. But it could be a bit of a scramble and she wouldn't have been kept at home for a slight sniffle. Fortunately she was a fairly robust child.

I do feel sorry for parents whose children have regular or chronic illness where time off is unavoidable. Schools should be aware of their particular circumstances and treat them with more understanding than the ones who are just keeping them hone for trivial reasons.

I’d have to email the school to clarify their no days off policy. Should I send in my vomiting child..?

I loathe attendance stuff like this, especially at primary school. If a primary school child isn’t at school, it’s not their fault so what are you hoping to achieve. They’re either ill (either a bug, or a long term condition that requires either time off and/or medical appointments, or where the school can’t meet their needs), or they’ve been taken out by their parents, or their parents haven’t been arsed to bring them to school. None of that is anything to do with them. My DD in year 2 has 100% attendance since reception and it is completely pure luck. She had a vomiting bug last year but it kicked in after school on Friday and she was back Monday.

I've never heard of this but it made me think. Do parents really allow their children to just take a day off from school when they are 'tired'? Unless they are properly ill, this is absolute nonsense. I never took any days off from school, and the one day my friend and I decided to take a Friday off (in the UVI, studying the same A levels), we were called to see the headmistress on Monday and given a real telling-off! School term times are for children going to school and learning - it is not optional!

It’s ridiculous to do it in November.

I could see the sense perhaps in doing something in June and the half of July when they’re at school, because the taking the kids out for holidays and experiences
does wind me up.

But you can’t stop kids being ill,
especially in winter time!

My DC are pretty lucky health wise these days. So have good attendance. But they will never have 100% attendance as our NHS dentist tells us that we cannot choose an appointment and appointments before and after school are reserved for private patients. Luckily we go to a school that do not push attendance, probably because they are a good school so most DC are happy to go in. The system is broken and parents are blamed.

Kids with disabilities and long-term health conditions have them all year around, not just in winter.

Besides, they haven't actually put any thought into it in choosing November specifically - like with so many of these gimmicks, they've just decided what strapline they want and looked for the month with a name that's closest to it!

It's not like they just focus on November for some reason and then stop harassing parents with disabled and very ill children for the rest of the school year.

This is another silly thing about attendance statistics. If you manage to get an early dentist appointment and your child is 20 mins late to school, they’ll have missed the morning register. But we’ve always had afternoon appointments that involve me picking DD up ~90 mins before the end of school, but after afternoon register so her attendance is unaffected. And that is seen as “better” because her attendance is better despite having missed more of the day.

I can't tell you a total number nationally, but having taught a year 11 class this afternoon with 31 pupils on roll, there were 23 present. So that's about a quarter out.

2 are coded as on holiday on the register, despite half term holiday being last week, and 1 of them having already gone even before that, missing time in the last week of last half term. 1 was ill and the specific symptoms were reported (and witnessed starting yesterday). 1 was ill with just a general 'unwell' reported (and was in yesterday and very likely will be back tomorrow). Another 4 are currently unauthorised because nobody called in to let us know of any issue - they just didn't turn up and office staff had to try to enquire as to where they were.

A different combination missed what we did yesterday and needed to catch up while most of us carried on.

Some do this regularly, just missing a day because they can't be arsed. Some are getting further and further behind. Some are taking up time and attention they wouldn't have needed if they'd come to school.

Unnecessary absence is a massive pain. They just won't achieve what they might have.

Given that they have about 110 school days until they leave, something needs to be done to encourage them in, and that message will have to go to everyone.

Yes this. I didn’t allow any suggestion that the school could tell me what to do with my own child - I’m the bloody parent! I’ve got no idea why parents (and MN posters) kowtow to the nonsense.

And I actually am very supportive of education and behaving well at school (DS would have been horrified if they’d ever called me about any bad behaviour as he knew I’d go ballistic). But if he was ill it was my decision to keep him off as the legal parent. The school used to try and say to send them in and they’d apparently make the decision but I didn’t allow that.

And while he had very few days off for other events (2 days I think in primary for a holiday that was booked before the term dates were announced plus a couple of family funerals) these very rare. But I never asked for permission- I’d made the decision and the school could either authorise it or not but they didn’t get to make the decision.

Four not being able to be contacted for the whole day? Do you think they’ll be motivated by an attendance award? If only one of the four was unwell, that’s 10% of class absence just on illness. Unnecessary absence is a problem, but my (maybe unpopular) opinion is unnecessary attendance is a bigger problem and many schools go OTT in pressurising unwell amd contagious children in, which is hugely unfair on others. How many of the class are in school but unwell and how many will be unwell by the end of the week?

Irish schools are obliged to notify Tusla if a child has missed more than 20 days/year, though I believe they also provide context for the absence, The parent is sent a letter by the school letting them know the notification has been made.

I got several such letters from the school over the years (DC has a long term illness) but there was never any follow up from Tusla, but that could be because they were aware of the situation.