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?

Ask your GP receptionist to send you a text reminder when you book the appointment.

But nobody needs straight 9s unless they are aiming for Oxbridge, which most people aren't. My DD could probably get that if she didn't have ND issues which makes her attendance and energy levels wobbly. I will be perfectly happy of she gets a decent crop of 6-8s. And again, I'm a secondary teacher with a very academic background.

I’m taking issue with it didn’t affect, it absolutely did. The better your grades the more choices you have. Even with 9’s and A*’s you don’t need to go to Oxbridge, but you can do almost anything. Get 4’s instead of 5’s and 6’s your opportunities are narrowing.

It’s frustrating but try to remember it’s not the schools fault either. We all have to play the game a bit, you will find the school much more helpful if you do. One of my kids has a lot of hospital appointments due to a serious health condition. We always try and get the in in the morning even if it means picking up within the hour. The school really do appreciate the effort

Yes I know; that’s what I said.

As frustrating as it is, go to morning registration then leave. That will halve your missing sessions. A friend's daughter has had lots of very early orthodontist appointments, so she misses morning registration, but arrives just after tutor time and misses NO lessons. Her attendance is 82%, purely for missing registration. The system a farce.

Agreed. I have had 2 kids go through the orthodontist, and they go every 6 weeks. At one appointment, they arrange the next, I ask for early-ish morning and late-ish afternoon...so I can take them and then drop them back after, or collect early. If that isn't possible on the exact 6 week day so be it. I would not let them miss a whole day for an appointment, that's bonkers! Do you at least ensure they're keeping up with their work at home? I'm guessing not.

One of the above kids also has about 5 or 6 days off a year for sporting events, and has still never got down close to 80%. That's an average of a day a week off school.

What are you doing to mitigate the impact this will have on their education? And why are you so surprised the school are 🙄🤔

As an attendance officer, surely you're aware of the impact of missing an average of a day a week?

Usually I would say the schools have to follow up attendance below a certain percentage, don't worry about it, because absences can't be helped. Frankly though, if you think having all day off for a orthodontist appointment 30 miles away is ok, I wonder what else you are using as an excuse:
1 hour drive there
1 hour there
1 hour back
Even if the appointment was at 12 in the middle of the day - that's 2 hours in school before you take her out at 10.45 and 1 hour in school after you drop her off at 2. If you could make early appointments say at 9.30, she doesn't go in first but is back by 11.30, she's in for 3 and 1/2 hours, maybe more if school ends at 3.30. If your child had had no other time off and only had one or two appointments in the academic year then fair enough to take her out for the whole day, but at this point, you should be trying your level best to get in school for every minute you can.

Yes of course but there's a massive gap between straight 9s and handful of 4s isn't there. And 6/7s are enough for most things. Lots of L2/3 college courses out there with 3 grade 3s too. I don't like the narrative that grade at 16 are permanently life changing. They aren't and I've seen kids and parents driven demented by the pressure and stress of dragging kids through a system to the detriment of their health.

This, @Interpink you said 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. well you must have had letters or texts about these, all they're.asking is you provide the appt letter and they'll authorise?

To be fair 80% attendance means your children bave missed one day every single week since thy started. Back. If my kids were missing that level of school, I would not be adding to it by missing full days for appointments .

If it's medical absence they are breaking the law by marking it as unauthorised but unfortunately a lot of schools don't give a shit about the law. Send evidence of the appointments otherwise you might get fined. Make a complaint if they've marked your child unauthorised. You might still get fined anyway but what else are you supposed to do? Send your sick child to school so that it's a tick on the attendance register, regardless of whether they're actually well enough to learn? Many school staff are just arseholes who care more about attendance data than they do children.

Maybe the tone of the emails you have received from the school reflects the fact that they don’t think you’re making appropriate effort to maximise your children’s school attendance. And given you apparently think it acceptable to miss a whole day of school for an orthodontist appointment, I’m minded to agree with their tone. Attendance matters. And like it or not, what the school think of you and your kids matters too. Maybe stop losing your patience with them and see them as the educators they are, wanting the best outcomes for your kids, and work with them to improve the frankly terrible attendance record they have. Sometimes absence is unavoidable, but by your own admission they could be in school more.

My DD has regular hospital appointments due to a chronic medical condition, but I always schedule these after 3pm, that way I can pick her up towards the end of the school day - her attendance is recorded, and more importantly it has the least impact on her school day and therefore her learning. I have made it clear to her medical team that both her health and her education matter and they have been very accommodating with schedules in response.

OP, every dentist appointment I had as a child was at 4pm, as my mother wouldn't allow me to miss school. There's also many weeks of the year that are school holidays, for routine appointments.
They need to be in school, and they are currently missing 20% of their education - doesn't that worry you at all?

It is wasnt a routine dentist appointment. It was hospital appointments. Going from experience you carnt just change hospital appointments to suit you. If you change the appointment you can be waiting months for an appointment.

I do sympathise as my DS has a lot of appointments (luckily local, and he is in an independent specialist school with many pupils that hardly ever attend, he's there every day he isn't ill). I would be playing the registration game - we had an appointment 2 hours away which was actually in the summer holidays but I would have taken him to school myself, registered and taken him straight there if I'd been in your situation.

If we have a 12noon appointment we pick him up at 11 (if local), this happens a lot, if 9.30 am we take him afterwards, in time for lunch if possible, if not, in time for afternoon registration. The school is actually understanding and gives out 100% attendance certificates not counting medical days, and he's not down to 80% even with that. But we try and minimise.

I get you couldn't choose the hospital but why is your orthodontist so far away? If it's because you're rural then that 30miles probably doesn't take that long to drive. I kind of understand as my DS's orthodontist will only see NHS patients between 10 and 1, but even if he has the 10am appointment he goes in for an hour and I collect him and drop him back after.

@sexnotgenders we've never been able to change a hospital paediatrics appointment but they've converted them to a phone appointment when we've been on holiday, which helps - they need DS height and weight but we have 2 parallel sets of regular 6 monthly appointments i.e. every 3 months and they can accept our measurements at some of them.

Attendance is not something to be mortified about. If your child is ill, they are ill, it's nobody's fault.

My kids orthodontist has appointments from 8am. Are you asking for appointments early or late so they don’t miss school?. It may mean you have to wait longer between tightening etc but given their absence it makes sense to do whatever you can to get them into school.

I don't think the OP suggested that the school had marked absences as unauthorised just that, going forwards, they would need to see proof of appointment. This could be text, email or appointment slip.
My GP sends out sms reminders of appointments when booked (also helps limit missed appointments).
With a high level of absence and, perhaps, a slight suspicion that the OP is not making enough effort to make sure the child attends this seems reasonable.

Exactly - the appointments haven’t been routine ones and obviously if there was a way to have the appointments out of school hours then I would.

Maybe it’s just been the perfect storm of several unexpected things - one of them had some minor surgery which ran over time and then the following week had to go to have the stitches out, and would have meant us getting back to school about 2pm, and it was PE which he couldn’t have done anyway with a freshly dressed wound, so he came home.

I just resent the inference that I can’t be arsed with it instead of actually seeing that the logistics of life sometimes decree that I simply cant be in two places at once.

It's also about the message you are sending your children. At the moment, you're showing them that school is fair game to be missed if something else makes it a little inconvenient.

I think school would accept all this if you sent the evidence in. It shouldn't take that long to get it all together if most of it was related to one or two providers.