AIBU to feel utterly fed up that school attendance targets matter more than staff and pupil health?

[ThatTwinklyPearlSloth]

I’m a teacher and finished for the Christmas holidays yesterday. I should be switching off and enjoying the break, but instead I’m lying in bed with flu-like symptoms: dry cough, fever, completely exhausted but unable to sleep.

Given the number of children in my class who have been unwell over the past week or two, it honestly felt inevitable. We have a bonkers attendance culture where children are effectively encouraged to come in even when they’re ill. We regularly have pupils bringing medicine into school, which is then administered by staff throughout the day. Surely if a child can’t manage without medication, they should be at home resting?

NHS guidance is clear about 48 hours at home after sickness, yet I’ve personally heard our headteacher say to parents, “Well if they’re not sick again today, they can come back in tomorrow.” This week I had a child who had mornings off due to illness but then came in for afternoons because they didn’t want to miss the Christmas activities. They proudly announced, “I’ve got the flu! But I didn’t want to miss the party!” All while having a streaming nose, dark circles under their eyes and coughing their guts up. And school allowed this.

To be clear, I don’t blame the parents at all. I completely understand the childcare pressures and how impossible things are for many families. This is a system problem. I’m just feeling utterly disenchanted with it all. Why do attendance percentages and targets seem to matter more than the health of pupils and staff?

Now my Christmas plans are up in the air and I’m feeling sorry for myself, while members of SLT who make these decisions are sitting in comfortable offices, well away from the coughing, sniffling children. It just feels like another example of a completely broken education system.

AIBU to feel fed up, angry and worn down by this?

YANBU, but it's not just your place of work. You get it worst because it's kids and they're little germ factories that often don't even attempt to cover their mouth or nose when coughing or sneezing... But everywhere expects you to work ill. But cause capitalism. We're all just worker bees for the elite. That's what the kids are being trained for, essentially.

What the first poster said. I WFH. But just a few weeks ago I was in a meeting that I knew if I missed, I'd have been looked down upon for. I was so dumped up on painkillers that I might as well have been drunk. But they wanted me there and wouldn't have been understanding had I not been. Guaranteed.

Pupils are just being primed for that.

I think you’re generous to not blame the parents, because I would. The child who was off in the mornings and then in in the afternoons? That’s a parent who can’t tell their child “no”.

Medicine is more of a grey area though, I don’t think it’s reasonable to say that if they need medicine they are too ill for school. A child might be on antibiotics for a week or so, but they aren’t necessarily contagious or unwell once the antibiotics kick in (some things wouldn’t be contagious anyway, like an ear infection, and even for something that would be, it won’t be contagious for the whole course of the antibiotics).

It isn’t the parents fault, it’s the system. It isn’t just the pressure for their children to have good attendance which you’re right, is absolutely pushed by all schools and they will come down on you if it drops below a certain level. It’s also the fact most parents have to work to earn and don’t have relatives who don’t work to come take care of the sick child. Once upon a time grandparents would have taken on this role but since people are having children later, their parents are either too old and infirm or dead.

I have kids (one in SS) who luckily have good attendance and an understanding school, but I know people who have kids unable to attend due to the school environment/SEND but they don't offer any solutions and just make the parents feel bad. If we actually funded proper SEND education the attendance figures would be far better and you would not have kids going to school sick.

It's also about the parent's employers too though. I have had to send my kids to school sick due to having work pressure and not being able to be off sick.

YANBU. I’ve spent the past couple of months being coughed and sneezed on by hoards of very obviously unwell kids (who will not cover their mouths or use tissues!!) and have a nasty virus just in time for Christmas.

I loathe this presenteeism culture we have in a lot of schools and workplaces.

Being in school for 96% of the time is not a big expectation. Coughs and colds are just part of life where you take medicine to keep your symptoms to a minimum. If you’re talking about the flu then yes parents should keep them at home. But they send them in so they can go to work or they don’t want their kids at home.

Nothing to do with attendance. Unless they are really low and have triggered actions for their child’s Abscence.

it is ridiculous, in all working areas, not just schools

But there is a grey area between a simple cough/ cold and flu. Children/ staff expected to drag themselves in for literally everything bar vomiting is ridiculous and not in the interest of anybody bar parents who don’t want time off work and SLT who care about league tables and are under pressure to do so. There does need to be more thought and protection for children and staff. School staff also have the double whammy of being expected to only take med appointments outside of school hours and have no access to phones for most of the day for cover / safeguarding reasons. Given that that is pretty impossible for many that often means no medical appointments either.

I agree on the antibiotics point but I had a parent this week tell me “she’s not well but she doesn’t want to miss anything so I’ll leave Calpol at the office”🙃

I understand what you’re saying, but from a school perspective attendance is a big factor. There is significant pressure on schools to return to pre-pandemic attendance levels, and senior leadership teams closely monitor whole-school attendance percentages.

The systems we use also compare our attendance against national averages and weekly trends, so even small dips are scrutinised. This is why schools often emphasise attendance so strongly. It isn’t about individual families being judged, but about whole-school accountability and external monitoring.

The message from schools is that your are a neglectful parent if you keep your (unwell) child off school. It is madness. But it’s the children and staff who suffer.
Please consider speaking anonymously to your MP about this because I think the dam will burst on “attendance” soon. It’s not a sensible or sustainable policy.

And as an ex teacher I totally agree that it’s not just about the individual schools, but about the way schools are judged, which is why it’s a political matter and your voice has weight in this.

DC are expected to be in school what 96% of the time? And employees aren’t too keen on their employers taking time off to fully recover, or for something relatively mild. It is what it is really.

The message from schools is that your are a neglectful parent if you keep your (unwell) child off school. It is madness. But it’s the children and staff who suffer.

Parents also suffer, they catch the bugs too.

I agree and would add some of this manifests itself as fear in the pupils. My daughter had an accident and had to go to A&E. She said that she was worried about letting her tutor group down as her attendance would decrease due to the hospital visit. I thought it was absolute madness; there is a big difference between skiving and being too ill to be in an education setting. The attendance scores don’t carry any of this nuance

Research shows that at a societal level children’s educational outcomes correlate with attendance.

Schools and society aren’t actually bother about the families whose children have to take a day off here or there because of genuine illness.

It’s the ones with 65% attendance that they worry about… the ones who are late almost daily so that even if they’re in they don’t get a morning mark, and the kids who refuse school for whatever reason.

Therefore there is pressure on the whole school community to keep attendance up because of percentages.

If you’re not well enough to go to work or your child isn’t well enough go to school then that should be the end of it.