More about school absence - what is lawful?

[Interpink]

I’ve had my arse handed to me over the attendance of my children as according to school records it’s nearing 80%. They have said that without GP letters they won’t authorise any further absences. Both of my children have had minor surgery and then follow up appointments and as the hospital that they’re under are nowhere near school, if the appointment is in the middle of the day they’re missing a whole day, which whilst not ideal is unavoidable.

The tone of the emails has been awful, and I’ve replied saying I’m committed to their attendance and education. But frankly I’m losing patience - why does it even matter how they choose to record it? I’d much rather they were in school but I also won’t send them if they’re genuinely unwell, or drop them in for one hour and then have to go back and pick up again to get to an orthodontist appointment 30 miles away etc.

AIBU?

We go by public transportation so 30 miles can be quite a while. Not every family has a car.

I was a child in the 1980's and my parents received similar letters plus a court threat because of me having every friday off for 6 weeks. I was under the renal team at the nearest childrens hospital and the specialist who ( finally ) diagnosed me only came to that hospital on a Friday. The school were very aware , but a zealous attendence officer in the LEA srarted legal proceedings. The hospital stepped in. My mum still has her copy of the letter.
Its ridiculous for a school to harrass parents of ill children.

It's best to take them in to register, even if they sit in class, register, then walk back out.

You carnt always change appointments, with my son you took what you got or you would wait months for another. Also don't assume people can drive, I had to use public transport for all my son's appointments which adds time. Waiting for train/ bus to turn up, then not turning up, transport taking longer as you carnt take a direct route, needing to take more than one bus. Then needing to feed the child.yes appointments can take all day when we don't live in your perfect little world

Try to get the orthodontist to give you early or late appointments. I’ve managed to get either 9 am or 4 pm ones for DS. Ours is a 40 minute drive each way from home or school, but I can get DS into school by 10.30 from a 9 am one.

Assuming this is secondary school they'll be registered in every lesson. Also, I teach secondary and have two teens who have both struggled with EBSA. what I know is that "gaps in learning" at this age , with attendance of 80% might end up equating to a few marks missed on one of two or three exams papers and if they are reasonably diligent with their out of school revision, they'll be fine. They may not get the grades they're technically capable of but enough to move on to next steps. I'm increasingly disillusioned with the system I am part of and it's straitjacket approach to complex issues.

They'll be standard letters that get automatically triggered at a certain point of absence. But I'm curious to know over what period of time your kids have missed one day in every five - as that is quite a lot.

If it's just over the last half term and relates to a few days missed for the surgery and follow-ups then that's fine - but over a longer period, then a day out of class every single week is a lot of missed learning.

These are 3 teen boys? 15 and 16?

And they’re missing all this school because of appointments?

It sounds like there might be a mix of a few different kind of abscences here.

Some
unavoidable medical ones, for illness or necessary health appointments. Some for convenience, where some school would have been possible around an appointment but you / your child decided it wasn’t worth the effort, and some that are potentially for cosmetic appointments (which is what most orthodontic appointments are - not all, but most), and some from being late.

Some of those are unavoidable, some are choices being made in your household. It may be worthwhile revisiting the household view of school attendance. Is it a priority, or secondary to everything else. It might have drifted slightly further down the list because there’s been a lot happening and an adjustment might be appropriate

Iant it awful that parents with sick children have this pressure on them ! Absolutely ridiculous

Helpful to who?!

Yes. But for absence calculation purposes, there are 2 key points in the day. So if kids are late, and miss that first registration, then it's calculated they have missed half a day- even though they may have attended all bar 20 mins of that morning.

It's this way at the 4 secondary schools my children have attended and the 3 primary schools. Yours may be different.

it would be helpful to the kids’ education

An 'over zealous clerk'? Really?

Seeing as that person will be completing the forms for the head to sign for referral to the local authority for penalty notices, a better attitude towards the person who is doing their job would be more productive.

80% in the first week of term isn't so bad, but by now, it should have vastly improved bar actual illness, disability or a bereavement.

Both of my children have had minor surgery and then follow up appointments and as the hospital that they’re under are nowhere near school

I'd much rather they were in school but I also won’t or drop them in for one hour and then have to go back and pick up again to get to an orthodontist appointment 30 miles away etc.

I'm a bit confused, is this an orthodontist based at a hospital or are there two separate issues (i.e. the hospital is far away and the orthodontist is far away).

If it's the latter, is there not a closer orthodontist?

It is, yes. It’s annoying because my son is down as having missed half a day and he didn’t, he was late in because our car broke down en route. Has 100% attendance apart from that. Sigh.

If they've missed registration or arrived after registers have closed (usually 20-30 minutes after registers open depending on LEA/trust policy) they are automatically marked as absent for that session and this WILL count towards total absences. The school has no leeway in deciding that.
If they arrive late but registers are open they would get a late mark rather than absent.

Surgery is unavoidable but orthodontist appointments are not acute treatment so should be made at times where school time missed is minimal if at all, my dc saw theirs at 5pm. If they need to be seen in hospital and the clinic was in the morning, I always requested 9am so I could get them back to school in a timely manner.

I collected DS for a dentist appointment and took him back half an hour later and it still came up as a missed session.

You need to take them in if they can be there for an hour.

Yea, it matters how things are recorded in case they decide to prosecute you. They can’t ask for GP letters for illness unless they believe you’re faking it - look up the DoE guidelines. They can ask for copies of appointment letters and they won’t authorise a full day off if they child could attend for part of the day

And as far as gp letters etc, if they have a medical condition that is necessitating frequent absence then the school needs to be aware of this, if the 80% attendance (which is the equivalent of missing one day per week) is for a variety of reasons you need to be considering whether it’s a genuine blip and not going to be repeated or whether you are prioritising convenience over education. Yes I did take my dd in for one hour before picking her up to go to appointments, and yes even if there was only 60 minutes left I would drop her back, she missed a lot of school for a couple of reasons but she only missed what she had to

Did they get straight 9’s? It absolutely will have affected them.

Surely if they have medical appointments you’d have appointment letters / emails / cards?
When I book a dentist appointment I get a text message and slip of paper with the appointment on. For hospital appointments I’ve always had proof. It sounds like you’re keeping both DC off school when one has an appointment. If so, one of them will definitely get unauthorised. I’d be booking ortho appointments either at the start or end of the school day so at least they do most of the day in school. 80% attendance over a year equates to 76 half days over a school year, which is over half a term off school. Over 5 years in secondary school that means they’re missing a full year of education.

Schools have a cut off time for attendance when the registers close. In my school a child who arrives after 9am is marked as late that morning. Unless there’s an accepted reason, it will be marked as U.

Local authorities can access attendance data in real time and will call the school out, it is vital they are in this. Medical providers are used to being asked for letters for school age children, you can even screenshot the spinning texts. If you do that and get them in on time on other days their attendance will be 100%.

But now I’d ask the providers for duplicate letters, (if you don’t have a portal you can download from) it won’t take long…